On May 10th, according to CCTV News, the Interstellar Twinkling Monitoring Telescope (IPS Telescope) in China has successfully passed the process test, marking the official completion of the telescope.
With this, the Meridian Project Phase II is now ready to meet the conditions for process acceptance.
It is understood that the IPS telescope, independently developed by China, is the country's first radio telescope specifically designed for observing interplanetary scintillation.
Using a coordinated measurement method with one main station and two auxiliary stations, the three stations include the Mingantu main station in Xilin Gol League, the Ihegole auxiliary station, and the Wurigen Tala auxiliary station. The pairwise connections between the three stations form an approximately equilateral triangle, with a distance of about 200 kilometers between each station.
The main station of the IPS telescope boasts the largest parabolic cylindrical radio telescope in China, consisting of three rows of parabolic cylindrical antennas measuring 140 meters long and 40 meters wide. Its antenna diameter, noise temperature, and detection sensitivity are all at the forefront of international standards.
The IPS telescope achieves high sensitivity capture of extremely weak cosmic transient radio signals at three frequency bands: 327 MHz, 654 MHz, and 1400 MHz.
The IPS telescope system is based on a hybrid design of east-west mechanical scanning and north-south electronic scanning. It employs phased array feed digital multi-beam receiving technology to achieve continuous coverage of wide fields of view and large sky areas.
The project construction team has overcome core key technologies such as high-precision synchronous control of giant movable parabolic cylindrical antennas and high stability amplitude-phase reception under digital hybrid beam synthesis architecture.
The recent technology test indicates that the IPS telescope has demonstrated continuous detection capability for interstellar flicker signals. The technical indicators of the main station and two auxiliary stations have met or exceeded the preliminary design requirements.
It will be the most advanced telescope internationally dedicated to interstellar flicker monitoring, playing a crucial role in China's space weather research.
