- evn2024@mpifr.de
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Contribution
Densification of VLBI radio sources around the JUICE spacecraft trajectory during its Venus flyby
Speakers
- Dr. Krisztina PERGER
Primary authors
- Dr. Krisztina PERGER (HUN-REN Research Centre For Astronomy and Earth Sciences)
Co-authors
- Dr. Sándor FREY (HUN-REN Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences)
- Dr. Noor Masdiana Md SAID (JIVE)
- Dr. Bert VERMEERSEN (Delft University of Technology (Faculty of Aerospace Engineering))
- Dr. Judit FOGASY (HUN-REN Research Centre For Astronomy and Earth Sciences)
- Dr. Giuseppe CIMO (Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC)
- Dr. Dominic DIRKX (Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology (Space Engineering))
- Jasper EDWARDS (University of Tasmania)
- Marie FAYOLLE (Delft University of Technology (Astrodynamics and space missions))
- Prof. Leonid GURVITS (JIVE)
- Dr. Guifré MOLERA CALVÉS (University of Tasmania)
- Vidhya PALLICHADATH (Delft University of Technology)
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Content
The European Space Agency's (ESA) large-class mission Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) was launched on 2023 April 14, and started its interplanetary journey towards the Jovian system. The primary science goal of the mission is a complex study of the icy Galilean moons of Jupiter, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. One of the eleven scientific experiments of JUICE is the Planetary Radio Interferometry and Doppler Experiment (PRIDE). Without a specific on-board payload, PRIDE will use the communication system of the spacecraft to determine its accurate position with respect to bright extragalactic radio sources, through phase-referencing very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations, preferably in the in-beam mode. Our main goal is to find suitable new reference sources around JUICE's trajectory to support its navigation on the way to and in the Jovian system. As there is approximately only one known reference source per 2.5 square degrees alongside the Ecliptic and thus the trajectory of JUICE, finding new sources and densifying the reference frame is an important amplification of PRIDE. To identify suitable in-beam reference sources, test and tune-up data reduction methodology and algorithms, and assess the quality and accuracy of the JUICE state vector determination, we planned several VLBI experiments using the European VLBI Network (EVN), the Australian Long Baseline Array (LBA), and a global VLBI network. Here we present the results of our latest experiment. These observations will serve as a pilot study for finding new potential reference sources close to the trajectory of JUICE during its upcoming Venus flyby in August 2025. The X-band observations were carried out using 12 antennae of the EVN in February 2024, targeting 9 weak sources selected from the VLA Sky Survey and the mJIVE-20 collection, and 3 bright sources from the Radio Fundamental Catalog (RFC). Our aims are to detect new in-beam phase reference calibrators among the 9 in-beam targets, and to link the RFC sources into the International Celestial Reference Frame.