GPS-Based Orbit Determination for HEO Orbits Serving Northern Region

Debo Sun and Alfred Ng

Abstract:	Highly elliptical orbit (HEO) can provide a favorable service, such as telecommunications, for the northern region if its apogee is set near North Pole. However, since generally the altitude of the apogee of HEO is much higher than that of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, resulting in unfavorable GPS receiving conditions, it imposes a challenge for orbit determination with GPS. To improve the performance of orbit determination with GPS, usually an orbital dynamic model is used to integrate with GPS measurements, resulting in a GPS/dynamic model system. In order to evaluate the integration approach to the orbit determination in HEO with the emphasis on using commercially available GPS receivers, this paper investigates the performance of each GPS-based orbit determination system corresponding to three HEOs – Molniya, 16-hour HEO, and a 24-hour HEO. Results show that with GPS receiver only tracking GPS main lobe signals, orbital dynamic model, and tight integration strategy, the GPS/dynamic model system can provide an orbit determination accuracy of better than 26 meters (3s)in each direction for all three HEOs when GPS pseudorange measurement noise is 5 meters (1s).
Published in:	Proceedings of the 24th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2011) September 20 - 23, 2011 Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon Portland, OR
Pages:	3782 - 3789
Cite this article:	Sun, Debo, Ng, Alfred, "GPS-Based Orbit Determination for HEO Orbits Serving Northern Region," Proceedings of the 24th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2011), Portland, OR, September 2011, pp. 3782-3789.
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