First Results of the FAST-S/X Sessions with New VGOS Antennas

Alexander Neidhardt, Pablo de Vicente, Alessandra Bertarini, Thomas Artz, Sebastian Halsig, Dmitry Ivanov, Alexey Melnikov, Johannes Böhm, Andreas Hellerschmied, David Mayer, Christian Plötz, Gerhard Kronschnabl, Axel Nothnagel, Sergei Kurdubov, Andrey Mikhailov, Dmitry Marshalov, Ilia Bezrukov, Yu. Bondarenko

IVS 2016 General Meeting Proceedings "New Horizons with VGOS", Edited by Dirk Behrend, Karen D. Baver, and Kyla L. Armstrong NASA/CP-2016-219016, 96–100 (2016)

Keywords: FAST, S/X observations, VGOS antennas

Abstract

During the VTC meeting in Ponta Delgada, Portugal, it was decided to form a group with the goal of testing the fast slewing mode of the VGOS antennas on intercontinental baselines. The goal is to observe S/X-schedules regularly using fast slewing modes of the antennas. Two sessions, FAST02 and FAST03, were scheduled with VieVS at the Vienna University of Technology, employing the new VGOS antennas at Yebes in Spain, Wettzell in Germany, and Zelenchukskaya and Badary in Russia. FAST02 was a 24-hour session observed in DDC mode. FAST03 was a six-hour session to test the PFB mode. The correlation was done both in Bonn, where also the main geodetic analysis was made, and at the IAA in Russia. Unfortunately, FAST03 was not successful due to incompatible frequency setups. In this paper, we report on the first results of the FAST02 session.