The First Flight Tests of GPS on the Space Shuttle

Penny E. Saunders, Michael C. Robel, Mike E. Aemi, David N. Feuerstein, Stephanie B. Lowery, Clark E. Cohen

Abstract:	The first flights of GPS user equipment on the Space Shuttle occurred on STS-56 in April 1993 and on STSS 1 in September 1993. The goal of the flight tests was to demonstrate GPS on-orbit performance in the least expensive way possible. STS-56 was intended to provide an accurate Orbiter state vector for post-flight use by two earth-pointing experiments - Atmospheric Trace Molecule Spectroscopy and Millimeter-Wave Atmospheric Sounder. The STS-51 mission provided a unique opportunity for real-time relative GPS evaluation through computation of the state vector differences between the GPS solutions from a co-orbiting platform and an Orbiter-based GPS solution. Both Orbiter missions flew a low-cost commercial receiver that contained a software upgrade to support satellite tracking at orbital velocities. GPS antennas were strapped to the Orbiter windows during on-orbit operations. Three antennas were used to provide improved satellite visibility. This paper provides a summary of the preflight tests and analyses, a description of the flight hardware and software configuration and on-orbit operations, and an evaluation of on-orbit tracking performance.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 1994 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 24 - 26, 1994 Catamaran Resort Hotel San Diego, CA
Pages:	657 - 669
Cite this article:	Saunders, Penny E., Robel, Michael C., Aemi, Mike E., Feuerstein, David N., Lowery, Stephanie B., Cohen, Clark E., "The First Flight Tests of GPS on the Space Shuttle," Proceedings of the 1994 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, San Diego, CA, January 1994, pp. 657-669.
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