@article{a4cb54f183a946eb90791b7b32ff8419,
title = "A balloon-borne very long baseline interferometry experiment in the stratosphere: Systems design and developments",
abstract = "The balloon-borne very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) experiment is a technical feasibility study for performing radio interferometry in the stratosphere. The flight model has been developed. A balloon-borne VLBI station will be launched to establish interferometric fringes with ground-based VLBI stations distributed over the Japanese islands at an observing frequency of approximately 20 GHz as the first step. This paper describes the system design and development of a series of observing instruments and bus systems. In addition to the advantages of avoiding the atmospheric effects of absorption and fluctuation in high frequency radio observation, the mobility of a station can improve the sampling coverage (“uv-coverage”) by increasing the number of baselines by the number of ground-based counterparts for each observation day. This benefit cannot be obtained with conventional arrays that solely comprise ground-based stations. The balloon-borne VLBI can contribute to a future progress of research fields such as black holes by direct imaging.",
keywords = "Balloon, Black holes, Interferometry, Radio astronomy, Radio telescopes, Satellite system",
author = "Akihiro Doi and Yusuke Kono and Kimihiro Kimura and Satomi Nakahara and Tomoaki Oyama and Nozomi Okada and Yasutaka Satou and Kazuyoshi Yamashita and Naoko Matsumoto and Mitsuhisa Baba and Daisuke Yasuda and Shunsaku Suzuki and Yutaka Hasegawa and Mareki Honma and Hiroaki Tanaka and Kosei Ishimura and Yasuhiro Murata and Reiho Shimomukai and Tomohiro Tachi and Kazuya Saito and Naohiko Watanabe and Nobutaka Bando and Osamu Kameya and Yoshinori Yonekura and Mamoru Sekido and Yoshiyuki Inoue and Hikaru Sakamoto and Nozomu Kogiso and Yasuhiro Shoji and Hideo Ogawa and Kenta Fujisawa and Masanao Narita and Hiroshi Shibai and Hideyuki Fuke and Kenta Uehara and Shoko Koyama",
note = "Funding Information: Our deep appreciation goes to Kanaguchi, M., Miyaji, Y., Komori, A., Ebisawa, K., Kobayashi, H., Ogi, Y., Takefuji, K., Tsuboi, M., and Manabe, T., Aoki, T., for their invaluable supports to this project. A special note of thanks to all the staff involved in the development and operation of the Taiki Aerospace Research Field (TARF), a facility of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA); especially, we received generous support from Yoshida, T. Saito, Y., Koyanagi, K., and Sasaki, A. Scientific Ballooning Research and Operation Group and the laboratory of infrared astrophysics offer development infrastructures in the Sagamihara campus of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), which is a branch of JAXA. We are also grateful to the staff and students involved in the development and operation of the Mizusawa VLBI Observatory of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), which is a branch of the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS). The Mizusawa VLBI Observatory is responsible for the operations of the correlator for the balloon-borne VLBI experiment. A large part of the large pressurized vessel (PVL) has also been developed at the Mizusawa VLBI Observatory: we appreciate the contributions of Matsueda, C., Asakura, Y., Matsukawa, Y., Nagayama, T., Nakamura, H., Nishikawa, T., and Yamada, R. The encouragement from the Japan VLBI Consortium committee were invaluable for continuing the development activities of this experiment. Part of this activity is carried out under the collaborative research agreement between RIKEN and JAXA. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI , Grant Nos. 26120537 , 17H02874(AD) , 16K05305 (YK) , the Casio Science Promotion Foundation (AD), the Inamori Foundation (YK), and the Sasakawa Scientific Research Grant (SN). This study was partially supported by JAXA{\textquoteright}s competitive grants for Strategic Basic Research and Development (HT) and Expense for Basic Development of On-board Instruments and Experiment (YK). Funding Information: Our deep appreciation goes to Kanaguchi, M., Miyaji, Y., Komori, A., Ebisawa, K., Kobayashi, H., Ogi, Y., Takefuji, K., Tsuboi, M., and Manabe, T., Aoki, T., for their invaluable supports to this project. A special note of thanks to all the staff involved in the development and operation of the Taiki Aerospace Research Field (TARF), a facility of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA); especially, we received generous support from Yoshida, T. Saito, Y., Koyanagi, K., and Sasaki, A. Scientific Ballooning Research and Operation Group and the laboratory of infrared astrophysics offer development infrastructures in the Sagamihara campus of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), which is a branch of JAXA. We are also grateful to the staff and students involved in the development and operation of the Mizusawa VLBI Observatory of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), which is a branch of the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS). The Mizusawa VLBI Observatory is responsible for the operations of the correlator for the balloon-borne VLBI experiment. A large part of the large pressurized vessel (PVL) has also been developed at the Mizusawa VLBI Observatory: we appreciate the contributions of Matsueda, C., Asakura, Y., Matsukawa, Y., Nagayama, T., Nakamura, H., Nishikawa, T., and Yamada, R. The encouragement from the Japan VLBI Consortium committee were invaluable for continuing the development activities of this experiment. Part of this activity is carried out under the collaborative research agreement between RIKEN and JAXA. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI, Grant Nos. 26120537, 17H02874(AD), 16K05305 (YK), the Casio Science Promotion Foundation (AD), the Inamori Foundation (YK), and the Sasakawa Scientific Research Grant (SN). This study was partially supported by JAXA's competitive grants for Strategic Basic Research and Development (HT) and Expense for Basic Development of On-board Instruments and Experiment (YK). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2018",
year = "2019",
month = jan,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1016/j.asr.2018.09.020",
language = "English",
volume = "63",
pages = "779--793",
journal = "Advances in Space Research",
issn = "0273-1177",
publisher = "Elsevier Limited",
number = "1",
}