Evaluation of Asia-Europe TWSTFT Links Using the Express-80 Satellite

Two-way satellite time and frequency transfer (TWSTFT) is extensively used by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) in the calculation of coordinated universal time (UTC). The Asia-Europe TWSTFT links using the Express-80 satellite were reestablished in June 2021. This paper uses monthly measurements to evaluate the time comparison performance of the Asia-Europe TWSTFT network. We select TWSTFT data for analysis on the long and short baselines over the same period, respectively. Since the TWSTFT link has not been calibrated, we take the GPS precise point positioning (PPP) link, independent of TWSTFT, as a reference and align the TWSTFT results with it. Then, the results from the TWSTFT and GPS PPP solutions are compared on the different baselines. Finally, the modified Allan deviation (MDEV) and the double clock difference (DCD) between the TWSTFT link and the GPS PPP link are used to evaluate the performance of the TWSTFT results. The results show that the TWSTFT results are consistent with the results of CPS PPP time transfer, and the frequency stability of TWSTFT links on long and short baselines can reach 3E-15 or better with an averaging time of 1 d. The standard deviation of the DCD results is less than 0.4 ns on different baselines, which ensures the accuracy of the TWSTFT link. The Asia-Europe TWSTFT link can be used for UTC time transfer after calibration.