Initial On-Orbit Observations of the L5 Demo Payload on GPS IIR-20

J. Hsu, A. Choy, T.D. Powell, A.C. Utter, P.A. Dafesh

Abstract:	The primary mission of the L5 Demonstration payload, as described in Powell et al. “The L5 Demo Payload on GPS Mission IIR-20,” (ION-GNSS 2008)[1], is to Bring Into Use (BIU) the GPS L5 (1176.45 MHz) frequency filings with the International Telecommunication Union Radio Bureau (ITU-R). The launch of GPS IIR-20(SVN49) was originally scheduled for June 2008, but was delayed until March 2009. The acquisition, tracking, and on-orbit characterization of the L5 Demonstration signal was performed by the Modernized Aerospace GPS Navigation Evaluation Testbed (MAGNET), which is a realtime GPS receiver testbed developed by The Aerospace Corporation to evaluate current and future GPS signals. The MAGNET receiver is a software-defined radio (SDR) system that employs field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) for correlation and computationally intensive processing, and includes an embedded soft-core microprocessor that performs navigation and low-rate processing functions. This paper describes measurements of the first transmission of an L5 signal from a IIRM GPS satellite. The paper also describes the MAGNET receiver capability and its application to a series of realtime on-orbit measurements of the L5 Demonstration signal. The signal is characterized and compared to tracking of legacy C/A code satellite signals. In particular, the relative C/N0 performance, code tracking, carrier tracking, and signal quality are examined.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 22nd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2009) September 22 - 25, 2009 Savannah International Convention Center Savannah, GA
Pages:	76 - 85
Cite this article:	Hsu, J., Choy, A., Powell, T.D., Utter, A.C., Dafesh, P.A., "Initial On-Orbit Observations of the L5 Demo Payload on GPS IIR-20," Proceedings of the 22nd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2009), Savannah, GA, September 2009, pp. 76-85.
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