Toward Autonomous Navigation of Spacecraft on the Observed Periodic Radiation of Pulsars

The analytical coupling of the Doppler shift of the periodic pulsar radiation with the motion parameters of the observer in any chosen coordinate frame is shown. The motion parameters and the deviation of the spacecraft from the calculated position are associated with the Doppler shift of radiation of the pulsar. According to the coherent radiation of the pulsar in space and time, due to stable rotation parameters, the uniform physical time scales, invariant in any coordinate frame, including on-board, is formed. In the orthogonal coordinate system with axes beginning at the center of mass of the spacecraft and non-rotating axes relative to the barycenter of the Solar system, the projections of the radius vector and spacecraft deflection velocity in the direction of the pulsar are obtained. According to the observed rotation parameters of the pulsar, which are not correlated with its movement, inertial coordinate reference systems are synchronized by the criterion of invariance of analytical pulsar time scales in each of them. As an illustration, the decade data on the timing of the pulsar B0531+21 determined its own position and movement with an estimated accuracy within about 10 m and 10-1–10-2 m/s, respectively, with the subnanosecond resolution of the measured intervals and corresponded distances.