Narrow Results

This paper is about the Data Processing Center (DPC) working within the RadioAstron project. Since the launch of the space radio telescope to orbit in July 2011, the DPC underwent significant quantitative and qualitative changes as the project developed. This paper describes the schemes, structure, stages of the processing center development, current upgrades and new technologies introduced in the DPC throughout the entire period of its operation. For technical reasons, the scheduled observations in the project were terminated in January 2019. However, still the work of the DPC continued. Today, the most valuable thing we have is information. There is now a unique archive of service and scientific data of the project in our possession, and a data bank of the RadioAstron project is underway, which will ensure a proper access to scientific and service information for all interested experts, as well as provide an opportunity for an additional data analysis.

A test of a cornerstone of general relativity, the gravitational redshift effect, is currently being conducted with the RadioAstron spacecraft, which is on a highly eccentric orbit around Earth. Using ground radio telescopes to record the spacecraft signal, synchronized to its ultra-stable on-board H-maser, we can probe the varying flow of time on board with unprecedented accuracy. The observations performed so far, currently being analyzed, have already allowed us to measure the effect with a relative accuracy of 4 × 10⁻⁴. We expect to reach 2.5 × 10⁻⁵ with additional observations in 2016, an improvement of almost a magnitude over the 40-year old result of the GP-A mission.