In-orbit Demonstration of X-Ray Pulsar Navigation with the Insight-HXMT Satellite

In this work, we report the in-orbit demonstration of X-ray pulsar navigation with Insight-Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT) Satellite, which was launched on 2017 June 15. The new pulsar navigation method “Significance Enhancement of Pulse-profile with Orbit-dynamics” is adopted to determine the orbit with observations of only one pulsar. In this test, the Crab pulsar is chosen and observed by Insight-HXMT from 2017 August 31 to September 5. Using the five-day long observation data, the orbit of Insight-HXMT is determined successfully with the three telescopes onboard: High Energy X-ray Telescope, Medium Energy X-ray Telescope, and Low Energy X-ray Telescope, respectively. By combining all the data, the position and velocity of the Insight-HXMT are pinpointed to within 10 km (3σ) and 10 m s^-1 (3σ), respectively.