Realization Status of the VLBI Global Observing System

Abstract:

The International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS) currently employs a two-band VLBI system (legacy S/X system) as its operational system for product creation. Over the past decade a new VLBI system called VGOS (VLBI Global Observing System) has been under development and in recent years strides have been made to implement the new broadband system globally. A modernized station infrastructure has been (and will continue to be) established worldwide and in 2020 a fledgling network of 8-10 VGOS stations started observing in operational IVS sessions. It is anticipated that the global VGOS network will grow to 25 stations and more in the next couple of years. As part of the modernization process also other infrastructure components of the VLBI processing chain have been further developed, including the VGOS correlation and post-processing capabilities as well as VGOS data analysis. We will provide a status overview of the infrastructure realization efforts of the VGOS station network, the correlation centers and analysis, and we will present some initial results from the limited network VGOS sessions.