Tsinghua Scientific Satellite Precise Orbit Determination Using Onboard GNSS Observations with Antenna Center Modeling

Abstract

The Tsinghua scientific satellite is a Chinese spherical micro satellite for Earth gravity and atmospheric scientific measurements. The accurate orbits of this satellite are the prerequisites to satisfy the mission objectives. A commercial off-the-shelf dual-frequency GNSS receiver is equipped on the satellite for precise orbit determination (POD). The in-flight performances of the receiver are assessed. Regular long-duration gaps up to 50 min are observed in GNSS data, and the typical data availability is about 60–70% each day. The RMS of code noises is 0.24 m and 0.30 m for C1 and P2 codes, respectively. The RMS of fitting residuals of the carrier phase geometry-free L1–L2 combination is 2.4 mm. The GNSS receiver antenna center offsets (ACOs) and antenna center variations (ACVs) maps are estimated using in-flight data for both dual-frequency and single-frequency POD. Significant improvements in POD performances are obtained when the measurement models are updated by using the ACO and ACV maps’ corrections. With the updated measurement model, the RMS of the orbit overlap differences is 1.23 cm in three dimensions for dual-frequency POD, which is reduced by 27%. Meanwhile, two different empirical acceleration types are employed and compared for dual-frequency POD, and the results show that consistency on the 5 cm level is demonstrated for orbit solutions obtained with the updated measurement model. After correcting the ACO and ACV maps, the precision of single-frequency orbit solutions is better than 10 cm, which is improved by 32%. The results indicate that the antenna center modeling can significantly improve the consistency of Tsinghua scientific satellite precise orbits, which will be conducive to the realization of the mission objectives.