Abstract
The paper presents attitude determination results of the “GPS Attitude, Positioning and Profiling Experiment” (GAP) on board the CASSIOPE satellite using real flight data. The GAP payload consists of five minimally modified commercial-off-the-shelf NovAtel OEM4-G2L receivers that provide dual-frequency GPS measurements and allow for attitude and orbit determination of the satellite as well as electron density profiling. To the authors' knowledge, the CASSIOPE mission is the first space mission that provides dual-frequency observations for attitude determination. The data has been analyzed with a GPS attitude determination algorithm originally developed for the analysis of data from the “Flying Laptop” mission. The GPS-based solution for selected attitude maneuvers is compared to a reference orientation provided by the satellite's star sensors. Furthermore, an analysis of the typical time-to-first-fix (TTFF) for the attitude solution is provided. The advantage of dual-frequency ambiguity fixing compared to single-frequency is assessed.
Highlights
The paper presents attitude determination results of the “GPS Attitude, Positioning and Profiling Experiment” (GAP)[1,2] on board the CASSIOPE (CAScade, Smallsat and IOnospheric Polar Explorer) satellite using real flight data
The paper presents the first published attitude determination results of the Canadian research satellite CASSIOPE, which is equipped with multiple antennas and dual-frequency L1/L2 GPS receivers
The attitude estimation has been performed using an algorithm that was initially developed for the “Flying Laptop” satellite mission and has been adapted to be able to process multi-frequency GPS measurements
Summary
The paper presents attitude determination results of the “GPS Attitude, Positioning and Profiling Experiment” (GAP)[1,2] on board the CASSIOPE (CAScade, Smallsat and IOnospheric Polar Explorer) satellite using real flight data. Four of the receivers are each connected to a Sensor System S67-1575-14 patch antenna, mounted on the zenith face of the satellite. Together, this four-antenna, four-receiver system is known as GAP-A. The data used in this study have been collected between January 2015 and September 2018 During this time period, only the receivers connected to the patch antennas GPS-0, GPS-1, and GPS-2 have been periodically activated simultaneously. The GPS-based attitude solution is compared to a reference attitude provided by the satellite's star sensors This procedure allows a direct assessment of the achievable accuracy for typical satellite attitude orientations and maneuvers of the CASSIOPE mission. The advantages of dual-frequency ambiguity fixing compared to single-frequency are assessed, considering the occasional occurrence of half-cycle ambiguities
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