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Ultra-low-frequency radio astronomy observations from a Seleno-centric orbit

First results of the Longjiang-2 experiment

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Abstract

This paper introduces the first results of observations with the Ultra-Long-Wavelength (ULW) —- Low Frequency Interferometer and Spectrometer (LFIS) on board the selenocentric satellite Longjiang-2. We present a brief description of the satellite and focus on the LFIS payload. The in-orbit commissioning confirmed a reliable operational status of the instrumentation. We also present results of a transition observation, which offers unique measurements on several novel aspects. We estimate the RFI suppression required for such a radio astronomy instrumentation at the Moon-distances from Earth as order of − 80 dB. We analyse a method of separating Earth- and satellite-originated radio frequency interference (RFI). It is found that the RFI level at frequencies lower than a few MHz is smaller than the receiver noise floor.

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Data Availability

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the National Space Science Data Center, owned by the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center, China National Space Administration but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license from the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and permission of the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center.

Notes

  1. http://www.lofar.org, accessed 2021.03.20

  2. http://lwa.unm.edu, accessed 2021.03.20

  3. http://mwatelescope.org, accessed 2021.03.20

  4. http://astronomers.skatelescope.org, accessed 2021.03.20

  5. A detailed analysis of the system temperature and the sky temperature measured by LFIS is outside of the scope of this paper and will be addressed elsewhere. However, we note that our preliminary estimates indicated the LFIS antenna temperature was below 104 K, while the sky temperature at 30 MHz was about 104 K smoothly rising to 7 × 107 K at 6 MHz.

  6. IAA Permanent Committee on Moon Farside Protection: https://iaaspace.org/about/permanent-committees/#1658152007849-7e3d453e-d9ba, accessed on 2022.11.03.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center, China National Space Administration for the piggybacking opportunity for the Longjiang flight on the Chang’E-4 Lunar mission. The China-Europe joint team for the DSL concept helped to refine many details of the experiment presented in this paper. We acknowledge with gratitude very useful comments provided by the anonymous reviewer of the manuscript of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Jingye Yan, Lin Wu, Ailan Lan & Yang Yang

  2. National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Jingye Yan, Ji Wu, Lin Wu, Li Deng, Fei Zhao, Li Zhou, Ailan Lan, Wenjie Fan, Min Yi, Yang Yang & Zhen Yang

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Jingye Yan, Ji Wu, Lin Wu, Ailan Lan & Yang Yang

  4. Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC, Dwingeloo, The Netherlands

    Leonid I. Gurvits

  5. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Leonid I. Gurvits

  6. Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China

    Mingchuan Wei, Jinsheng Guo, Shi Qiu, Fan Wu & Chaoran Hu

  7. National Astronomical Observatories of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xuelei Chen

  8. Space Research Centre, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland

    Hanna Rothkaehl & Marek Morawski

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  1. Jingye Yan
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Correspondence to Jingye Yan.

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Yan, J., Wu, J., Gurvits, L.I. et al. Ultra-low-frequency radio astronomy observations from a Seleno-centric orbit. Exp Astron 56, 333–353 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10686-022-09887-0

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