Application of GPS to space vehicles: analysis of space environment and errors

Abstract

GPS based systems become extremely competitive for space applications because of their all-weather capabilities and continual information on position, velocity, precise time and even attitude to increase mission effectiveness, reduce mission cost, minimize requirements of on-board devices. In this paper, space application environment and error sources have been systematically analyzed, including geometric location of user with GPS satellites, dynamic state, physical environment and the effects on positioning accuracy. Several special differential GPS technologies to space use are proposed.