Orbit Determination for the CanX-2 Nanosatellite using Intermittent GPS Data

E. Kahr, S. Skone, K. O’Keefe

Abstract:	The CanX-2 nanosatellite has been in orbit since April 2008. Among other payloads, it is carrying a NovAtel OEM4-G2L GPS receiver. The receiver is operated intermittently, and is warm started using scripts which are generated ahead of time on the ground. The scripts are based on published ephemerides for both the nanosatellite and the GPS constellation; however, this paper investigates the possibility of using GPS data in conjunction with the VEC2TLE and NORAD’s SGP4 to generate the required information for warm starting the receiver. Four different experiments are carried out to assess the suitability of the model. The output is compared to the published NORAD ephemerides, the impact of operating the receiver for different lengths of time is investigated, the sensitivity of the model to weighting the GPS epochs is investigated, and finally the sensitivity of the model to the value of the drag parameter is investigated. The end goal is to find an algorithm which could be realistically incorporated into future nanosatellite missions as a method of bridging GPS outages and warm starting the receiver without requiring a level of dynamics modeling, data storage, and computational capacity far beyond the norm for a nanosatellite.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 23rd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2010) September 21 - 24, 2010 Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon Portland, OR
Pages:	2117 - 2125
Cite this article:	Kahr, E., Skone, S., O’Keefe, K., "Orbit Determination for the CanX-2 Nanosatellite using Intermittent GPS Data," Proceedings of the 23rd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2010), Portland, OR, September 2010, pp. 2117-2125.
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