Estimation of Orbital Parameters from (u,v)-coverage for a Space Radio Interferometer

Abstract

Finding a suitable very long baseline (VLBI) interferometer geometry is a key task in planning observations, especially imaging sessions. The main characteristic of the quality of VLBI imaging data is the (u, v)-coverage. In the case when one or more radio telescopes are located in space, this task becomes more complex. This paper presents a method for recovering the optimal orbital parameters of space radio telescopes for a given desired (u, v)-coverage, which in turn is the inverse task of searching for the optimal geometry and orbital configurations of space-ground and pure space VLBI interferometers.