GARSPACE GNSS Receiver Experimentation Results During SL-15 Sounding Rocket Launch

Salvatore Guzzi, Riccardo Longo, Fabio Bernardi, Samuele Fantinato, Oscar Pozzobon, James J. Miller, Lisa Valencia, Paul De Leon, Claudia Facchinetti, Mario Musmeci

Abstract:	On October 1st, 2024, UP-Aerospace SpaceLoft 15 (SL-15) sounding rocket was launched from the Vertical Launch Area of Spaceport America in New Mexico in a suborbital flight, carrying payloads from three countries: Italy, Germany, and the US, and 10 organizations. Among these, the GARSPACE experiment, a multi-constellation multi-frequency GNSS receiver designed to compute real-time positioning using GPS/Galileo L1/E1 L5/E5a signals in high dynamic conditions. The launch vehicle followed a parabolic trajectory exceeding 102 km altitude before returning to Earth, and then successfully recovered at White Sands Missile Range an hour after the launch. The SpaceLoft XL rocket used for SL-15 mission is a single-stage unguided suborbital launch vehicle. Standard flight profile is a sub-orbital trajectory that reaches 100 km in altitude and achieves four minutes of microgravity time. During the main flight phases (boost, re-entry, recovery, and landing) payloads experience a maximum speed of more than 1400 m/s, a maximum acceleration of 13.5 G and a maximum spin rate of 7 Hz. The GARSPACE dual-frequency multi-constellation (DFMC) GNSS receiver for SL-15 has been developed by Qascom in the framework of a partnership agreement between NASA and ASI (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana). Qascom, an Italian aerospace company, supplied to UP-Aerospace the fully qualified payload, ready for integration. The main objective of the experiment is to demonstrate that GNSS can be used for future launchers navigation and launch range safety. GARSPACE receiver inherits the hardware architecture and software design from the previous GARHEO experiment, which flew onboard SL-14 mission in 2019, whose main goal was to understand how to manage high dynamic effects in a robust real-time space receiver design and to improve overall Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) performance. The receiver, connected to a purposely designed wraparound antenna through an ad-hoc RF chain, to meet specific requirements in terms of Noise Figure and gain, has computed the PVT during all the launch phases using GPS L1/L5 and Galileo E1/E5a signals. The aim was to assess the effects of realistic environment and how high dynamics (including acceleration, deceleration, shock and spin) heavily impact doppler and signal-to-noise ratio (C/N0) during receiver’s acquisition and tracking phases. The paper presents a complete mission description, alongside with hardware and software architecture, specific design choices, and computed results. The main focus is on the analysis of observables and PVT as captured during the launch, comparing them with the values associated to the reference trajectories and estimating the 3D RMSE Errors. A detailed analysis is hence presented, showing the effects of physical and mechanical stresses due to high-dynamics and spin effects on the computed doppler and C/N0 during lift-off, apogee and descent phases. Particular attention is devoted to study how specific environmental and mission conditions can be timely related to distinctive effects on the observables, to support the development and validation of the new generation of High Dynamics GNSS receivers providing enhanced robustness against GNSS threats. The GARSPACE GNSS receiver, GARISS (GPS-Galileo Receiver for the International Space Station), GARHEO (GPS-Galileo Receiver for Human Exploration & Operations directorate) and LuGRE (Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment) projects, are part of a Qascom roadmap in the Space volume applications, which includes the technological development of compact, low-cost, highly robust and reliable receivers, to be used in various applications in the space between the Earth and the Moon.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 38th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2025) September 8 - 12, 2025 Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor Baltimore, Maryland
Pages:	1867 - 1880
Cite this article:	Guzzi, Salvatore, Longo, Riccardo, Bernardi, Fabio, Fantinato, Samuele, Pozzobon, Oscar, Miller, James J., Valencia, Lisa, De Leon, Paul, Facchinetti, Claudia, Musmeci, Mario, "GARSPACE GNSS Receiver Experimentation Results During SL-15 Sounding Rocket Launch," Proceedings of the 38th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2025), Baltimore, Maryland, September 2025, pp. 1867-1880. https://doi.org/10.33012/2025.20421
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