A Novel Use of GPS for Determining the Orbit of a Geosynchronous Satellite: The TDRS/GPS Tracking Demonstration

Bruce Haines, Stephen Lichten, Ronald Muellerschoen, Don Spitzmesser, Jeffrey Srinivasan, Scott Stephens, Lawrence Young, Dennis Sweeney

Abstract:	New GPS-based techniques for tracking high Earth orbiters are under evaluation at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). One promising approach dispenses with the GPS flight receiver, employing instead a simple beacon on the user spacecraft. The beacon signal can be tracked along with signals from the GPS spacecraft in an enhanced GPS ground receiver. This approach, which we call GPS-like tracking (GLT), exploits GPS to precisely determine station coordinates, and media delays and to provide clock synchronization at the ground stations. NASA sponsored an experiment undertaken by JPL in January 1994 to demonstrate how GLT over short baselines could be used to determine the orbits of the geosynchronous Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS). This specialized form of GLT relies on tracking of the narrow-beam space-to-ground link (SGL) of the TDRS spacecraft. In this paper, we report on initial results from this experiment. These results suggest that, under nominal conditions, the NASA goal for TDRS orbit accuracy (SO-m, total position in near real time) is attainable using this method. The system offers high potential for inexpensive and automated tracking of geosynchronous orbiters, and should be attractive to designers of NASA, military and commercial space systems.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 7th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1994) September 20 - 23, 1994 Salt Palace Convention Center Salt Lake City, UT
Pages:	191 - 202
Cite this article:	Haines, Bruce, Lichten, Stephen, Muellerschoen, Ronald, Spitzmesser, Don, Srinivasan, Jeffrey, Stephens, Scott, Young, Lawrence, Sweeney, Dennis, "A Novel Use of GPS for Determining the Orbit of a Geosynchronous Satellite: The TDRS/GPS Tracking Demonstration," Proceedings of the 7th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1994), Salt Lake City, UT, September 1994, pp. 191-202.
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