Real-Time GPS Relative Navigation Flight Experiment

Heather Hinkel, Young Park, Wigbert Fehse

Abstract:	The European Space Agency (ESA) is planning to deliver their module and provide logistics resupply to the International Space Station Alpha (ISSA) with an Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV). The only source of information for the ATV rendezvous until handover to a proximity operations sensor is GPS relative navigation. This flight experiment between a Shuttle Pallet Satellite (SPAS) free- flyer and the Orbiter will provide the first demonstration of real-time GPS relative navigation between two space vehicles with GPS receivers. SPAS GPS measurement data will be sent to the Orbiter through a space-to-space communication link simulating the procedure for ISSA rendezvous. A Kalman filter will process the data from both GPS receivers real-time on an Orbiter laptop computer. The NASA and ESA GPS relative navigation implementation and results will be compared post-flight. Plans for the flight experiment configuration, rendezvous trajectory profile, results expected, data handling and relative best estimate of trajectory (BET) generation are discussed. Flight experiment results will be published post-flight.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 1995 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 18 - 20, 1995 Disneyland Hotel Anaheim, CA
Pages:	593 - 601
Cite this article:	Hinkel, Heather, Park, Young, Fehse, Wigbert, "Real-Time GPS Relative Navigation Flight Experiment," Proceedings of the 1995 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Anaheim, CA, January 1995, pp. 593-601.
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