Method for differential phase delay resolution of phase referencing VLBI technique and its experimental verification

The phase referencing Very Long Baseline Interferometry(VLBI)technique is a newly developed tool to measure the angular position of a deep space exploration probe in the plane-of-the-sky.Through alternating observations between the probe and a nearby reference radio source,their accurate relative angular separation can be obtained from the radio images generated by this technique.To meet the requirements of the current orbit determination software,differential delay should be firstly derived from those radio images.A method to resolve the differential phase delay from the phase referencing VLBI technique is proposed in this paper,and as well the mathematical model for differential phase ambiguity resolution is established.This method is verified with practical measurement data from the Chang’E-3 mission.The differential phase delay between the Chang’E-3 lander and rover was derived from the phase referencing VLBI measurements,and was then imported into the Shanghai astronomical observatory Orbit Determination Program(SODP)to calculate the position of the rover relative to the lander on the lunar surface.The results are consistent with those acquired directly from radio images,indicating that the differential phase ambiguity has been correctly resolved.The proposed method can be used to promote applications of the phase referencing VLBI technique in future lunar or deep space explorations,and more accurate orbit determination becomes promising.

Relative position determination of a lunar rover using the biased differential phase delay of same-beam VLBI

When only data transmission signals with a bandwidth of 1 MHz exist in the rover, the position can be obtained using the differential group delay data of the same-beam very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). The relative position between a lunar rover and a lander can be determined with an error of several hundreds of meters. When the guidance information of the rover is used to determine relative position, the rover's wheel skid behavior and integral movement may influence the accuracy of the determined position. This paper proposes a new method for accurately determining relative position. The differential group delay and biased differential phase delay are obtained from the same-beam VLBI observation, while the modified biased differential phase delay is obtained using the statistic mean value of the differential group delay and the biased phase delay as basis. The small bias in the modified biased phase delay is estimated together with other parameters when the relative position of the rover is calculated. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed using the same-beam VLBI observation data of SELENE. The radio sources onboard the rover and the lander are designed for same-beam VLBI observations. The results of the simulations of the differential delay of the same-beam VLBI observation between the rover and the lander show that the differential delay is sensitive to relative position. An approach to solving the relative position and a strategy for tracking are also introduced. When the lunar topography data near the rover are used and the observations are scheduled properly, the determined relative position of the rover may be nearly as accurate as that solved using differential phase delay data.

A new method for resolving phase ambiguity in radio interferometry using Earth rotation synthesis

As a key technique in deep space navigation, radio interferometry can be used to determine the accurate location of a spacecraft in the plane-of-sky by measuring its signal propagation time delay between two remote stations. To improve the measurement accuracy, differential phase delay without phase ambiguity is usually desired. Aiming at the difficulties of resolving phase ambiguity with few stations and narrowband downlink signals, a new method is proposed in this work by taking advantage of the Earth rotation. The high accurate differential phase delay between the spacecraft and a calibrator can be achieved not only in the in-beam observation mode but also in the out-of-beam observation mode. In this paper we firstly built the model of phase ambiguity resolution. Then, main measurement errors of the model are analyzed, which is followed by tests and validations of the model and method using the tracking data of the Cassini mission and Chang'E-3 mission. The results show that the phase ambiguities can be correctly resolved to generate a 10-picosecond level accuracy differential phase delay. Angular measurement accuracy of the Cassini reaches the milli-arc-second level, and the relative position accuracy between the Chang'E-3 rover and lander reaches the meter level.

New high-accuracy spacecraft VLBI tracking using high data-rate signal:A demonstration with Chang'E-3

As the scientific data volume in deep-space exploration rapidly grows,spacecraft heavily relies on high data-rate signals that span several megahertz to transmit data back to Earth.Employing high data-rate signals for high-accuracy radiometric interferometry can simultaneously deal with data transmission and spacecraft navigation.We demonstrate very long baseline interferometry(VLBI)tracking of the Chang’E-3 lander and rover to determine their relative lunar-surface position using downlink high data-rate signals.A new method based on the VLBI phase-referencing technique is proposed to obtain the differential phase delay,which is much more accurate than the differential group delay acquired by conventional VLBI approaches.The systemic errors among different signal channels have been well calibrated using the new method.The data from the Chang’E-3mission were then processed,and meter-level accuracy positions of the rover with respect to the lander have been obtained.This demonstration shows the feasibility of high-accuracy radiometric interferometry using high data-rate signals.The method proposed in this paper can also be applied to future deep-space navigation.