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The gravity field maps of the satellite gravimetry missions GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) and GRACE Follow-On are derived by means of precise orbit determination. The key observation is the biased inter-satellite range,…
Precise measurements of the Earth-Moon distance by the lunar laser ranging (LLR), which begun in the early 1970's, contributed significantly to geodesy, geophysics, and lunar planetology, as well as enabled astrophysicists to perform…
We present the design of a radio antenna system for obtaining instantaneous bearing measurements towards a radio emitter. Our work is motivated by applications where robots are used for localizing and tracking radio-tagged wildlife. The…
Radio wavelength astrometry of stars and other objects has a long and productive history. The use of that technique to determine whether stars have planets around them would cover a nearly unique part of the parameter space for detection of…
In 1859, Le Verrier discovered the Mercury perihelion advance anomaly. This anomaly turned out to be the first relativistic-gravity effect observed. During the 157 years to 2016, the precisions and accuracies of laboratory and space…
The precise Doppler method for measuring stellar radial velocities (RV) is a fundamental technique in modern astronomy. This method records a star's spectrum and detects periodic Doppler shifts in its spectral features, which indicate the…
In passive radar, a network of distributed sensors exploit signals from so-called Illuminators-of-Opportunity to detect and localize targets. We consider the case where the IO signal is available at each receiver node through a reference…
The core of every orbit determination process is the comparison between the measured observables and their predicted values, computed using the adopted mathematical models, and the minimization, in a least square sense, of their…
LISA is the proposed ESA-NASA gravitational wave detector in the 0.1 mHz - 0.1 Hz band. LISA Pathfinder is the down-scaled version of a single LISA arm. The arm -- named Doppler link -- can be treated as a differential accelerometer,…
I compare three methods for transmitting signals over interstellar distances: radio transmitters, lasers and artificial transits. The quantitative comparison is based on physical quantities depending on energy cost and transmitting time L,…
The discovery and characterization of exoplanets around nearby stars is driven by profound scientific questions about the uniqueness of Earth and our Solar System, and the conditions under which life could exist elsewhere in our Galaxy.…
A primary objective of the Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) experiment is to provide precise observations of the lunar orbit that contribute to a wide range of science investigations. Time series of the highly accurate measurements of the distance…
The planetary ephemerides play a crucial role for spacecraft navigation, mission planning, reduction and analysis of the most precise astronomical observations. The construction of such ephemerides is highly constrained by the tracking…
The position of a Martian lander is affected by different aspects of Mars' rotational motions: the nutations, the precession, the length-of-day variations and the polar motion. These various motions have a different signature in a Doppler…
We propose to use a high throughput and high precision multi-object dispersed fixed-delay interferometer for all sky Doppler surveys for extrasolar planets. This instrument, a combination of a fixed-delay interferometer with a moderate…
Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) underpin positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), yet their low-power signals are easily blocked or disrupted, leaving gaps in PNT availability in contested environments (e.g. maritime settings)…
The light from a source at a distance d will arrive at detectors separated by 100 AU at times that differ by as much as 120 (d/100 Mpc)^{-1} nanoseconds because of the curvature of the wavefront. At gigahertz frequencies, the arrival time…
One of the most famous classical tests of General Relativity is the gravitoelectric secular advance of the pericenter of a test body in the gravitational field of a central mass. In this paper we explore the possibility of performing a…
In order to avoid collisions with space debris, the near Earth orbit must be continuously scanned by either ground- or spaced-based facilities. For the low Earth orbit, radar telescopes are the workhorse for this task, especially due to…
We develop a high-precision model for laser ranging interferometric (LRI) observables of the GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission. For this, we study the propagation of an electromagnetic wave in the gravitational field in the vicinity of an…