VLBI celestial and terrestrial reference frames VIE2022b

Abstract

Context. We present the computation of global reference frames from very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations at the Vienna International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS) Analysis Center (VIE) in detail. We focus on the celestial and terrestrial frames from our two latest solutions VIE2020 and VIE2022b. Aims. The current international celestial and terrestrial reference frames, ICRF3 and ITRF2020, include VLBI observations until March 2018 (at the standard geodetic and astrometric radio frequencies 2.3 and 8.4 GHz) and December 2020, respectively. We provide terrestrial and celestial reference frames including VLBI sessions until June 2022 organized by the IVS. Methods. Vienna terrestrial and celestial reference frames are computed in a common least squares adjustment of geodetic and astro-metric VLBI observations with the Vienna VLBI and Satellite Software (VieVS). Results. We provide high-precision celestial and terrestrial reference frames computed from 24 h IVS observing sessions. Our latest celestial reference frame solution VIE2022b-sx provides positions of 5407 radio sources at the frequency of 8.4 GHz. In particular, the positions of sources with few observations at the time of the ICRF3 calculation are improved. The frame also includes positions of 870 radio sources not included in ICRF3. The additional observations beyond the data used for ITRF2020 provide a more reliable estimation of positions and linear velocities of newly established VLBI Global Observing System (VGOS) telescopes.