A Hybrid ECOM Model for Solar Radiation Pressure Effect on GPS Reference Orbit Derived by Orbit Fitting Technique

A hybrid ECOM (Empirical CODE Orbit Model) solar radiation pressure (SRP) model, which is termed ECOMC in this work, is proposed for global navigation satellite system (GNSS) orbit modeling. The ECOMC is mainly parameterized by both ECOM1 and ECOM2 models. The GNSS orbit mainly serves as a reference datum not only for its ranging measurement but also for the so-called precise point positioning (PPP) technique. Compared to a complex procedure of orbit determination with real tracking data, the so-called orbit fitting technique simply uses satellite positions from GNSS ephemeris as pseudo-observations to estimate the initial state vector and SRP parameters. The accuracy of the reference orbit is mainly dominated by the SRP, which is usually handled by either ECOM1 or ECOM2. However, the reference orbit derived by ECOM1 produces periodic variations on orbit differences with respect to International GNSS Service (IGS) final orbit for GPS IIR satellites. Such periodic variations are removed from a reference orbit formed using the ECOM2 model, which, however, yields large cross-track orbit errors for the IIR and IIF satellites. Such large errors are attributed to the fact that the ECOM2 intrinsically lacks 1 cycle per revolution (CPR) terms, which stabilize the estimations of the even-order CPR terms in the satellite-Sun direction when the orbit fitting is used. In comparison, a reference orbit constructed with the ECOMC model is free of both the periodic variations from the ECOM1 and the large cross-track orbit errors from the ECOM2. The above improvements from the ECOMC are associated with (1) the even CPR terms removing the periodic variations and (2) the 1 CPR terms compensating for the force mismodeling at = 90° and 270°, where the is the argument of the latitude of the satellite with respect to the Sun. The parameter correlation analysis also presents that the direct SRP estimation is sensitive to the 1 and 2 CPR terms in the ECOMC case. In addition, the root-mean-square (RMS) of orbit difference with respect to IGS orbit is improved by ~40%, ~10%, and ~50% in the radial, along-track, and cross-track directions, respectively, when the SRP model is changed from the ECOM2 to the ECOMC. The orbit accuracy is assessed through orbit overlaps at day boundaries. The accuracy improvements of the ECOMC-derived orbit over the ECOM2-derived orbit in the radial, along-track, and cross-track directions are 13.2%, 14.8%, and 42.6% for the IIF satellites and 7.4%, 7.7%, and 35.0% for the IIR satellites. The impact of the reference orbit using the three models on the PPP is assessed. The positioning accuracy derived from the ECOMC is better than that derived from the ECOM1 and ECOM2 by approximately 13% and 20%, respectively. This work may serve as a reference for forming the GNSS reference orbit using the orbit fitting technique with the ECOMC SRP model.

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Impact of ECOM Solar Radiation Pressure Models on Multi-GNSS Ultra-Rapid Orbit Determination

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs11243024 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (24) ◽

pp. 3024

Author(s):

Yang Liu ◽

Yanxiong Liu ◽

Ziwen Tian ◽

Xiaolei Dai ◽

Yun Qing ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Solar Radiation ◽

Real Time ◽

Radiation Pressure ◽

Orbit Determination ◽

Precise Orbit Determination ◽

Solar Radiation Pressure ◽

Satellite System ◽

Ambiguity Fixing ◽

Global Navigation Satellite ◽

The Impact

The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) ultra-rapid precise orbits are crucial for global and wide-area real-time high-precision applications. The solar radiation pressure (SRP) model is an important factor in precise orbit determination. The real-time orbit determination is generally less accurate than the post-processed one and may amplify the instability and mismodeling of SRP models. Also, the impact of different SRP models on multi-GNSS real-time predicted orbits demands investigations. We analyzed the impact of the ECOM 1 and ECOM 2 models on multi-GNSS ultra-rapid orbit determination in terms of ambiguity resolution performance, real-time predicted orbit overlap precision, and satellite laser ranging (SLR) validation. The multi-GNSS observed orbital arc and predicted orbital arcs of 1, 3, 6, and 24 h are compared. The simulated real-time experiment shows that for GLONASS and Galileo ultra-rapid orbits, compared to ECOM 1, ECOM 2 increased the ambiguity fixing rate to 89.3% and 83.1%, respectively, and improves the predicted orbit accuracy by 9.2% and 27.7%, respectively. For GPS ultra-rapid orbits, ECOM 2 obtains a similar ambiguity fixing rate as ECOM 1 but slightly better orbit overlap precision. For BDS GEO ultra-rapid orbits, ECOM 2 obtains better overlap precision and SLR residuals, while for BDS IGSO and MEO ultra-rapid orbits, ECOM 1 obtains better orbit overlap precision and SLR residuals.

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Geocenter coordinates derived from multi-GNSS: a look into the role of solar radiation pressure modeling

GPS Solutions ◽

10.1007/s10291-020-01037-3 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 25 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Radosław Zajdel ◽

Krzysztof Sośnica ◽

Grzegorz Bury

Keyword(s):

Solar Radiation ◽

Radiation Pressure ◽

A Priori ◽

Great Majority ◽

Solar Radiation Pressure ◽

Satellite System ◽

Annual Variations ◽

Wing Model ◽

Geocenter Motion ◽

The Impact

Abstract The Global Navigational Satellite System (GNSS) technique is naturally sensitive to the geocenter motion, similar to all satellite techniques. However, the GNSS-based estimates of the geocenter used to contain more orbital artifacts than the geophysical signals, especially for the Z component of the geocenter coordinates. This contribution conveys a discussion on the impact of solar radiation pressure (SRP) modeling on the geocenter motion estimates. To that end, we process 3 years of GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo observations (2017–2019), collected by a globally distributed network of the ground stations. All possible individual system-specific solutions, as well as combinations of the available constellations, are tested in search of characteristic patterns in geocenter coordinates. We show that the addition of a priori information about the SRP-based forces acting on the satellites using a box-wing model mitigates a great majority of the spurious signals in the spectra of the geocenter coordinates. The amplitude of the 3 cpy (about 121 days) signal for GLONASS has been reduced by a factor of 8.5. Moreover, the amplitude of the spurious 7 cpy (about 52 days) signal has been reduced by a factor of 5.8 and 3.1 for Galileo and GPS, respectively. Conversely, the box-wing solutions indicate increased amplitudes of the annual variations in the geocenter signal. The latter reaches the level of 10–11 mm compared to 4.4 and 6.0 mm from the satellite laser ranging observations of LAGEOS satellites and the corresponding GNSS series applying extended empirical CODE orbit model (ECOM2), respectively. Despite the possible improvement in the GLONASS-based Z component of the geocenter coordinates, we show that some significant power can still be found at periods other than annual. The GPS- and Galileo-based estimates are less affected; thus, a combination of GPS and Galileo leads to the best geocenter estimates.

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Seasonal variation of Mercury's exosphere deduced from MESSENGER data and simulation study

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-6542 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Yudai Suzuki ◽

Kazuo Yoshioka ◽

Go Murakami ◽

Ichiro Yoshikawa

Keyword(s):

Seasonal Variation ◽

Solar Radiation ◽

Radiation Pressure ◽

Seasonal Variability ◽

Solar Radiation Pressure ◽

Space Environment ◽

Generation Process ◽

Surface Transport ◽

Celestial Bodies ◽

The Impact

Celestial bodies with surface-bound exosphere are valuable because we can directly see the interaction between the bodies and space environment to which they are exposed. This interaction is especially expected to be clearly observed around Mercury. This research aims to clarify the generation process of neutral sodium exosphere, through the comparison between the data from MASCS onboard MESSENGER spacecraft and 3-D model calculation considering generation, transportation and dissipation processes.First, seasonal variability of the amount of sodium exosphere is analyzed for each local time (LT) using MASCS data. Previous research has shown that the amount of sodium above LT12 reaches a maximum at aphelion, and it is found that this maximum is seen only above LT12. In addition, two hypotheses proposed by the research: the increase in the surface sodium density of the dayside due to fast rotation of terminator, and the expansion of exosphere owing to weaker radiation pressure, were turned out to be inconsistent with seasonal variability above LT06 and the results of test particle calculations.Following these results, in order to understand the key process of the seasonal variation of the amount of sodium especially around LT12, 3-D sodium exosphere model including release from the surface, transport due to gravity and solar radiation pressure, and dissipation due to ionization caused by solar radiation is constructed. The results from numerical calculation is consistent with the observations by MASCS in terms of the vertical profile and the seasonal variability above LT06 and LT18, but the maximum at aphelion above LT12 could not be reproduced. Then, when the existence of the impact of comet dust stream is assumed as a local and short-term sodium source, the model with impact of 108kg comets per Mercury year could reproduce observations.Using the model constructed in this study, the sodium distribution which would be observed by MSASI onboard MIO spacecraft is predicted. The comparison between the calculation and observation by MSASI will provide us new insights into the interaction between the celestial bodies and space environment.In this presentation, we will summarize the results of comparison between observations by MASCS and 3-D Monte Carlo simulation about the seasonal variability of Mercury&#8217;s sodium exosphere.

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