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Abstract:
The growing number of communication satellites, especially in low earth orbit, is contributing to the increasing spaceborne radio frequency interference (RFI), which negatively affects radio astronomy observations. Which includes VLBI observations. Since the satellites are closer to Earth compared to the astronomical sources like quasars and pulsars, the satellite’s downlink is generally much stronger, thus overpowering the source signal. We therefore present our efforts towards developing a dynamic mask that will scan the sky and avoid (if necessary) observing points in the sky that are affected by the RFI at a given time. Efforts include a database that includes a catalogue of all the threatening satellite’s up to date orbital parameters, required to map out the orbital paths.
