| GEOPHYSICS, ASTRONOMY, AND ASTROPHYSICS |
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Laser Interferometer Used for Satellite–Satellite Tracking: an On-Ground Methodological Demonstration |
| LI Yu-Qiong, LUO Zi-Ren, LIU He-Shan, DONG Yu-Hui, JIN Gang** |
| National Microgravity Laboratory (NML), Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190 |
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| Cite this article: |
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LI Yu-Qiong, LUO Zi-Ren, LIU He-Shan et al 2012 Chin. Phys. Lett. 29 079501 |
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Abstract A Chinese satellite gravity mission called SAGM (Space Advanced Gravity Measurements) is now taken into consideration. To meet its designed requirement, the measurement precision of the laser ranging system used to measure the inter-satellite distance change has to be better than 100 nm/Hz1/2 within a broad bandwidth from 0.1 mHz to 1 Hz. An equal arm heterodyne Mach–Zehnder interferometer has been built on ground to demonstrate the measurement principle of a laser ranging system, which potentially can be used for both SAGM and future GW (gravitational wave) space antennas. Because of the equal arm length, the laser frequency noise has been significantly suppressed in the interferometer. Thus, the sensitivity better than 1 nm/Hz1/2 in a frequency range of 0.15 mHz–0.375 Hz has been achieved. The result shows that the proposed methodology has very promising feasibility to meet the requirements of SAGM and of GW space antennas as well.
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Received: 15 March 2012
Published: 31 May 2012
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| PACS: |
95.55.Br
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(Astrometric and interferometric instruments)
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91.10.Pp
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(Geodetic techniques; gravimetric measurements and instruments)
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42.60.By
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(Design of specific laser systems)
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