Abstract
In the framework of the Global Navigation Satellite System, European industries are identifying and studying new satellite constellations able to cope with required navigation performance for terrestrial, maritime, air, and space users. Alenia Aerospazio has identie ed many new satellite constellations. (Some of them are constituted by low Earth orbits or intermediate circular orbits for global coverage; others consider satellites in high elliptical orbits or geosynchronous orbits for regional coverage. ) All of them have been compared in terms of navigation performance, e.g., accuracy, availability, continuity, and integrity. The best one is a constellation of 27 satellites located in intermediate circular orbits at a common altitude of 10,389 km and a common inclination of 57 deg. This constellation has been identie ed by the Walker method to e nd a space system able to guarantee a global and continuous coverage with low positioning dilution of precision values (always less than 4 )and with a coverage level equal to 6, i.e., from each point of the Earth surface it is always possible to see at least six of the satellites. After both thepayload design and thebudget have been identie ed and analyzed,thesatellite platform hasbeen designed, obtaining, in this way, mass, power, and propellant budgets. The launch strategy and the orbit acquisition phase have been dee ned.
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