Related papers: Pulsar Navigation in the Solar System
The successes of previous and current Mars rovers have encouraged space agencies worldwide to pursue additional planetary exploration missions with more ambitious navigation goals. For example, NASA's planned Mars Sample Return mission will…
The POLAR detector is a space based Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) polarimeter sensitive in the 15-500 keV energy range. Apart from its main scientific goal as a Gamma-Ray Burst polarimeter it is also able to detect photons from pulsars in orbit. By…
We present here a method for the relativistic positioning in spacetime based on the reception of pulses from sources of electromagnetic signals whose worldline is known. The method is based on the use of a four-dimensional grid covering the…
The Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology (SEXTANT) is a technology demonstration enhancement to the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2017 and will be hosted…
The X/$\gamma$ ray polarimetry of the Crab pulsar/nebula is believed to hold crucial information on their emission models. In the past, several missions have shown evidence of polarized emission from the Crab. The significance of these…
Xona is deploying Pulsar, a low Earth orbit (LEO) commercial navigation system designed to deliver resilient positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) where traditional solutions fall short. Pulsar satellites broadcast dedicated signals…
We present updated hard X-ray polarization measurements of the Crab pulsar and nebula obtained with the balloon-borne polarimeter XL-Calibur in the ~19-64 keV energy range. During the flight, intermittent GPS-failure resulted in poorly…
Previous INTEGRAL/IBIS observations have shown that the gamma-ray radiation of the Crab Nebula is highly polarised and remarkably aligned along the axis of rotation of the pulsar (Forot et al. 2008). Their study was based on the first four…
The ability to determine the pose of a rover in an inertial frame autonomously is a crucial capability necessary for the next generation of surface rover missions on other planetary bodies. Currently, most on-going rover missions utilize…
In order to show the principle viability of a recently proposed relativistic positioning method based on the use of pulsed signals from sources at infinity, we present an application example reconstructing the world-line of an idealized…
We describe a comprehensive pulsar monitoring campaign for the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the {\em Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope} (formerly GLAST). The detection and study of pulsars in gamma rays give insights into the populations of…
In pulsar astronomy, detecting effective pulsar signals among numerous pulsar candidates is an important research topic. Starting from space X-ray pulsar signals, the two-dimensional autocorrelation profile map (2D-APM) feature modelling…
The Crab pulsar and its nebula are among the most studied astrophysical systems, and constitute one of the most promising environments where high energy processes and particle acceleration can be investigated. They are the only objects for…
POLAR is a dedicated Gamma-Ray Burst polarimeter making use of Compton-scattering which took data from the second Chinese spacelab, the Tiangong-2 from September 2016 to April 2017. It has a wide Field of View of $\sim6$ steradians and an…
Strong magnetic fields, synchrotron emission, and Compton scattering are omnipresent in compact celestial X-ray sources. Emissions in the X-ray energy band are consequently expected to be linearly polarized. X-ray polarimetry provides a…
Radio tracking of interplanetary probes is an important tool for navigation purposes as well as for testing the laws of physics or exploring planetary environments. The addition of an accelerometer on board a spacecraft provides orbit…
The exploration of interstellar space will require autonomous navigation systems that do not rely on tracking from the Earth. Here I develop a method to determine the 3D position and 3D velocity of a spacecraft in deep space using a star…
A general approach to the problem of positioning by means of pulsars or other pulsating sources located at infinity is described. The counting of the pulses for a set of different sources whose positions in the sky and periods are assumed…
At least ten emerging providers are developing satellite navigation systems for low Earth orbit (LEO). Compatibility with existing GNSS in L-band is critical to their successful deployment and for the larger ecosystem. Xona is deploying…
Pulsars provide a wealth of information about General Relativity, the equation of state of superdense matter, relativistic particle acceleration in high magnetic fields, the Galaxy's interstellar medium and magnetic field, stellar and…