Kaliuzhnyi M. Features of the application of radio interferometry technique to determine the elements of the orbit of geostationary satellites.

The thesis refers to a method for synchronized reception of the DVB-S pseudo-noise signals of digital satellite TV which was developed to determine the coordinates of geostationary telecommunication satellites (GTS) by a radio interferometry method. Regular observations of the GTS are organized using a network of stations (Kharkiv, Mukacheve, Rivne and Mykolaiv in Ukraine and Ventspils in Latvia) to track their positions. Orbit elements of the tracked satellites are computed using values of time differences of arrival (TDOA) of DVB-S signals measured within a day. The standard deviation of the satellite position determination is less than 225 m for the epoch of the orbit elements. An external comparison of the TDOA, measured by the radio interferometer network, was performed by applying TDOA computed using as ephemerides from www.space-track.org and orbit elements obtained by optical measurements. Standard deviations of the TDOA differences do not exceed 10 m, and average values are within ±40 m.