On the organization of CONT17
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
On the organization of CONT17 Dirk Behrend1
· Cynthia Thomas1 · John Gipson1 · Ed Himwich1 · Karine Le Bail1
Received: 27 September 2019 / Accepted: 7 September 2020 / Published online: 12 October 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The Continuous Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) Campaign 2017 (CONT17) was observed from November 28 to December 12, 2017 and featured three independent observing networks. Two legacy S/X networks of nominally 14 stations each observed in parallel for the full 15 days of the campaign. One of them was made possible in large part by the participation of the ten-station very long baseline array network of the long baseline observatory. Furthermore, for the 5-day period from December 4 to 8, 2017, a six-station broadband network continuously recorded VLBI global observing system data. The different networks will help probe the accuracy of the VLBI estimates of the Earth orientation parameters and investigate possible network biases. We describe the organizational efforts undertaken to realize CONT17, including the analysis of resources such as recording media, electronic data transfer, and correlation, the assignment of stations to the three networks, and source selection and schedule writing. Keywords Very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) · CONT17 · Legacy S/X VLBI · VLBI global observing system (VGOS) · Very long baseline array (VLBA)
1 Introduction The International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS) is an international body that organizes geodetic and astrometric Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) components and activities on a best effort basis (e.g., Schuh and Behrend 2012; Nothnagel et al. 2017). Since its creation in March 1999, the IVS has planned the resources of its contributors to provide geodetic and astrometric products, including Earth orientation parameters (EOP) and celestial and terrestrial reference frames (CRF/TRF). This is mostly accomplished through dedicated 24-h (and 1-h) observing sessions that are compiled into an annual master schedule. This schedule is instrumental in coordinating the available resources of station and correlator time, media, and data transport. Unlike, for instance, the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) technique, VLBI currently furnishes data for select days of the observing week only, where the observing days are usually discontiguous. The average number of observing days per week lies at around 3.5; that is, there are
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Dirk Behrend [email protected] NVI, Inc., 7257D Hanover Parkway, Greenbelt, MD 20770, USA
VLBI data available for about 50% of the week. Another distinction is that in VLBI the observing days start between 17:00 UT and 18:30 UT rather than at 0:00 UT. In the geodetic satellite techniques, on the other hand, data are generally processed in daily arcs of 24 h (for GNSS) from 0:00 to 24:00 UT or in up to 7 days (for Satellite Laser Ranging, SLR, as well as Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite, DO
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