Scheduling VLBI observations to satellites with VieVS

Abstract

\ua9 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016.Observations of satellites with Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) radio telescopes provide a variety of new possibilities such as the integration of different geodetic techniques, which is one of the main goals of GGOS, the Global Geodetic Observing System of the IAG. Promising applications can be found, among others, in the field of inter-technique frame ties. With the standard geodetic VLBI scheduling software not being prepared to use satellites as radio sources so far, such observations were complicated due to the need to carefully prepare the required interchange files. The newly developed Satellite Scheduling Module for the Vienna VLBI Software (VieVS) offers a solution to this. It allows the user to prepare VLBI schedule files in a standardized format, providing the possibility to carry out actual satellite observations with standard geodetic antennas, e.g. of the IVS network. First successful observations of GLONASS satellites, based on schedules created with the new VieVS module, took place on the baseline Wettzell-Onsala in January 2014