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Abstract:
Project “SaptaRishi” was initiated by the National Centre for Geodesy (NCG), IIT Kanpur to set up the modern space geodetic infrastructure in the country. This project primarily focuses on the establishment of the Indian Geodetic VLBI network, and is currently with the national funding agency and has not yet been approved. Thus, the purpose of this work is to demonstrate the benefits of the project plan to the national and international scientific communities. The project proposes to establish three VLBI stations along with a correlator at one facility. In this work, we looked at how adding proposed VLBI antennas to India affected the global terrestrial reference frame by showing Helmert transformation parameters, u-v coverage of radio sources, and the ability to track NAVIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) satellites. Three 24-hour sessions, IVS-R1, IVS-VGOS, and IVS-AOV, were studied to examine the change in Helmert parameters between the terrestrial reference frames caused by the addition of the proposed VLBI antennas. Furthermore, the u-v coverage of some radio sources from the southern hemisphere in observing networks with and without the proposed antennas was compared. The proposed VLBI stations were also scheduled and simulated to observe the NAVIC satellites along with quasars to assess their potential contribution to the Indian Navigation system. As a result, this work helps to establish that the development of the geodetic VLBI infrastructure in India will improve the necessary information for Earth observation missions, location-based applications, and the realization of terrestrial and celestial reference frames with international collaboration.
