Transferred from [CCTV News]

Recently, the exhibition "Nine Days of Lunar Exploration-20 Years of China's Lunar Exploration Project" was exhibited to the public at the Shanghai World Expo Museum. The exhibition exhibited some new technologies related to the moon. One of these technologies is called lunar orbit VLBI, which is an observation and test station in lunar orbit. What role will it play in deep space exploration?

July 20 is Man's Moon Day. In Shanghai, an exhibition on the 20th anniversary of China's lunar exploration project is underway.

The reporter found that there is a lunar orbit VLBI test device at the exhibition site. This test device is like installing an observatory in lunar orbit 380,000 kilometers away from the earth. It and the ground VLBI observatory can work together to conduct some deep space probes. Navigation and scientific research.

Wu Xiaojing, director of the Lunar Exploration/Deep Space Exploration VLBI Project Office, said that the following three equipment are the core of the six physical units of the entire lunar orbit VLBI test system.

The passive hydrogen atomic clock is the heart of this system and can provide accurate time and frequency;

The cryogenic electronic unit, also known as the cryogenic receiver on the ground, has a function of amplifying the signal received by the antenna at low temperature and low noise, and then converting it into an intermediate frequency signal;

At the data acquisition terminal, the intermediate frequency signals collected by the cryogenic electronic unit will be transmitted to the data transmission system through different bandwidths and different quantization methods. This is also a fixed storage platform carried on the satellite.

Lunar orbit VLBI test facility

Where did you put it?

The reporter saw a 1:2 model of the Queqiao-2 relay satellite at the scene. The VLBI test device in lunar orbit is mounted on the antenna of this relay star. The relay star is mainly used for detecting relay signals on the far side of the moon and the polar region of the moon.

The reporter learned that the lunar orbit VLBI test system can work with radio telescopes on Earth to achieve high-precision measurements of the moon, spacecraft and deep space objects in VLBI mode, extending the VLBI baseline length to approximately 380,000 kilometers. To obtain higher spatial resolution.

Wu Xiaojing introduced that the scientific goals to be achieved by the lunar orbit VLBI test device include:

The determination trajectory of deep space probes;

Research in astrophysics, such as black holes and general relativity;

Research in astrometry.