Supported by Germany, Finland, Spain, Switzerland, France, and Norway, CRAF submitted new questions to the ITU-R Working Party 7D of radio astronomy service for the recognition of the VLBI global Observing System (VGOS) services by ITU.

The global infrastructure of VGOS is composed of radio telescope network stations for Universal Time UT1 determinations for satellite operations, astronomical reference frame construction, and for monitoring of Global changes, such as polar motion, the length of the day and tectonic plate motions. As a new global infrastructure with currently no definition in ITU-R, there is a necessity to better understand and recognize the technical and operational characteristics of VGOS within ITU. VGOS makes passive use in four sub-bands of the spectrum in the range of 2-14 GHz to meet the targeted accuracy goals.

The lengthy process towards recognition was kicked off during the September 2020 meeting of WP 7D. Drafting work shall continue until the higher level meeting of the ITU-R Study Group 7 planned on Sep 2021.