A new design for a very low frequency space borne radio interferometer

Abstract

The non transparency and severe propagation effects of the terrestrial ionosphere make it impossible for Earth based instruments to study the universe at low radio frequencies. An exploration of the low frequency radio window with the resolution and sensitivity essential to meet the scientific objectives will necessarily require a dedicated satellite based interferometer operating at these frequencies. Such missions have been proposed in the literature for about past fifteen years. Today, the steady and impressive advances in technology and computing resources have brought us on the brink of a quantum jump in the performance and capabilities of such missions, increasing their scientific desirability many-fold. This paper presents the concept design which emerged from a study to investigate the feasibility of a low frequency satellite based interferometer operating in the frequency range 0.1 -- $40 MHz$ titled {\em PrepAration for Radio Interferometry in Space (PARIS)}. The salient features of the design are: an on-board correlator to reduce the data volumes to be transmitted to the Earth by about two orders of magnitude; use of three orthogonal dipoles in place of two to achieve better polarisation characteristics; direct digitisation of the entire radio frequency band of interest which eliminates the need for a local oscillator system; an overlap in the observing frequency range with upcoming ground based instruments for aid in imaging and calibration and an all-sky imaging capability. The most constraining bottle neck for the present design is the large intra-constellation telemetry requirement. It is expected that technological solutions to meet this requirement will be found in near future as other formation flying missions which share this requirement emerge.