GPS receiver and orbit determination system on-board VSOP satellite

In 1995 the VSOP satellite, which is called MUSES-B in Japan, will be launched under the VLBI Space Observatory Programme(VSOP) promoted by ISAS(Institute of Space and Astronautical Science) of Japan. We are now developing the GPS Receiver(GPSR) and On-board Orbit Determination System. This paper describes the GPS(Global Positioning System), VSOP, GPSR(GPS Receiver system) configuration and the results of the GPS system analysis. The GPSR consists of three GPS antennas and 5 channel receiver package. In the receiver package, there are two 16 bits microprocessing units. The power consumption is 25 Watts in average and the weight is 8.5 kg. Three GPS antennas on board enable GPSR to receive GPS signals from any NAVSTARs(GPS satellites) which are visible. NAVSATR's visibility is described as follows. The VSOP satellite flies from 1, 000 km to 20, 000 km in height on the elliptical orbit around the earth. On the other hand, the orbit of NAVSTARs are nearly circular and about 20, 000 km in height. GPSR can't receive the GPS signals near the apogee, because NAVSTARs transmit the GPS signals through the NAVSTAR's narrow beam antennas directed toward the earth. However near the perigee, GPSR can receive from 12 to 15 GPS signals. More than 4 GPS signals can be received for 40 minutes, which are related to GDOP(Geometric Dillusion Of Precision of selected NAVSTARs). Because there are a lot of visible NAVSTARs, GDOP is small near the perigee. This is a favorqble condition for GPSR. Orbit determination system onboard VSOP satellite consists of a Kalman filter and a precise orbit propagator. Near the perigee, the Kalman filter can eliminate the orbit propagation error using the observed data by GPSR. Except a perigee, precise onboard orbit propagator propagates the orbit, taking into account accelerations such as gravities of the earth, the sun, the moon, and other acceleration caused by the solar pressure. But there remain some amount of calculation and integration errors. When VSOP satellite returns to the perigee, the Kalman filter eliminates the error of the orbit determined by the propagator. After the error is eliminated, VSOP satellite flies out towards an apogee again. The analysis of the orbit determination is performed by the covariance analysis method. Number of the states of the onboard filter is 8. As for a true model, we assume that it is based on the actual error dynamics that include the Selective Availability of GPS called 'SA', having 17 states. Analytical results for position and velocity are tabulated and illustrated, in the sequel. These show that the position and the velocity error are about 40 m and 0.008 m/sec at the perigee, and are about 110 m and 0.012 m/sec at the apogee, respectively.