Performance Comparison of KOMPSAT-5 Precision Orbit Determination with GRACE

The Korean Multipurpose Satellite-5 (KOMPSAT-5) launched on 22 August 2013 was equipped with a global positioning system (GPS) receiver for precision orbit determination (POD). Even though the GPS receiver of KOMPSAT-5 shares the same heritage as the BlackJack receiver onboard in Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, KOMPSAT-5 has a lower orbital position accuracy (~10 cm) compared with GRACE (~2 cm). The reduced dynamic and kinematic methods are applied for POD of KOMPSAT-5 and GRACE to investigate the GPS observation quality due to the satellite operation concept and hardware design. The results are analyzed in terms of the number of observations and their spatial distribution, GPS signal quality, and orbital position accuracies. The results show that the frequent attitude maneuvers of KOMPSAT-5 affect the quality of the GPS signals and solutions obtained from the kinematic method compared with that determined from the reduced-dynamic method. The onboard patch GPS antenna installed in KOMPSAT-5 and its geometrical position resulted in more erratic measurement residuals by 140% compared with the choke ring antenna of GRACE. The POD accuracy is dependent on the hardware design and regular attitude tilting for the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging even though the same GPS receiver performances

Antenna Pointing to the Geo Satellite Using Converted NORAD TLE from Osculating Orbital Elements

Antenna pointing analysis for a geostationary satellite has been performed for using the NORAD Two-Line-Elements (TLE) converted from osculating Keplerian orbital elements. In order to check the possibility of the reception of the satellite signal, the antenna offset angles have been derived for the Communications, Ocean, and Meteorological Satellite (COMS) which carries out weekly East-West and North-South station-keeping maneuvers and twice a day thruster assisted momentum dumping. Throughout the analysis, it is shown that the use of converted NORAD TLE simplifies the antenna pointing related interfaces in satellite mission control system. For a highly eccentric transfer orbit cases, further analysis presents that the converted NORAD TLE from near apogee gives more favorable results

Precise Orbit Determination of LEO Satellite Using Dual-Frequency GPS Data

KOrea Multi-purpose SATellite (KOMPSAT)-5 will be launched at 550km altitude in 2010. Accurate satellite position (20 cm) and velocity (0.03 cm/s) are required to treat highly precise Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image processing. Ionosphere delay was eliminated using dual frequency GPS data and double differenced GPS measurement removed common clock errors of both GPS satellites and receiver. SAC-C carrier phase data with 0.1 Hz sampling rate was used to achieve precise orbit determination (POD) with ETRI GNSS Precise Orbit Determination (EGPOD) software, which was developed by ETRI. Dynamic model approach was used and satellite's position, velocity, and the coefficients of solar radiation pressure and drag were adjusted once per arc using Batch Least Square Estimator (BLSE) filter. Empirical accelerations for sinusoidal radial, along-track, and cross track terms were also estimated once per revolution for unmodeled dynamics. Additionally piece-wise constant acceleration for cross-track direction was estimated once per arc. The performance of POD was validated by comparing with JPL's Precise Orbit Ephemeris (POE)

Analysis and Design of the Automatic Flight Dynamics Operations For Geostationary Satellite Mission

Automation of the key flight dynamics operations for the geostationary orbit satellite mission is analyzed and designed. The automation includes satellite orbit determination, orbit prediction, event prediction, and fuel accounting. An object-oriented analysis and design methodology is used for design of the automation system. Automation scenarios are investigated first and then the scenarios are allocated to use cases. Sequences of the use cases are diagramed. Then software components and graphical user interfaces are designed for automation. The automation will be applied to the Communication, Ocean, and Meteorology Satellite (COMS) flight dynamics system for daily routine operations

Implementation and Test of the Automatic Flight Dynamics Operations for Geostationary Satellite Mission

This paper describes the Flight Dynamics Automation (FDA) system for COMS Flight Dynamics System (FDS) and its test result in terms of the performance of the automation jobs. FDA controls the flight dynamics functions such as orbit determination, orbit prediction, event prediction, and fuel accounting. The designed FDA is independent from the specific characteristics which are defined by spacecraft manufacturer or specific satellite missions. Therefore, FDA could easily links its autonomous job control functions to any satellite mission control system with some interface modification. By adding autonomous system along with flight dynamics system, it decreases the operator’s tedious and repeated jobs but increase the usability and reliability of the system. Therefore, FDA is used to improve the completeness of whole mission control system’s quality. The FDA is applied to the real flight dynamics system of a geostationary satellite, COMS and the experimental test is performed. The experimental result shows the stability and reliability of the mission control operations through the automatic job control

Implementation and Validation of Earth Acquisition Algorithm for Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite

Earth acquisition is to solve when earth can be visible from satellite after Sun acquisition during launch and early operation period or on-station satellite anomaly. In this paper, the algorithm and test result of the Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS) Earth acquisition are presented in case of on-station satellite anomaly status. The algorithms for the calculation of Earth-pointing attitude control parameters including those attitude direction vector, rotation matrix, and maneuver time and duration are based on COMS configuration (Eurostar 3000 bus). The coordinate system uses the reference initial frame. The constraint calculating available time-slot to perform the earth acquisition considers eclipse, angular separation, solar local time, and infra-red earth sensor blinding conditions. The results of Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) are compared with that of the Astrium software to validate the implemented ETRI software

Varaition of Local Time of Ascending Node Due to the Altitude Decay of Sun-Synchronous Satellite

Variation of the Local Time of Ascending Node (LTAN) has been analyzed according to initial inclinations when the altitude of Sun-synchronous satellite is continuously decreased due to the atmospheric drag. Orbit predictions of 3 years have been performed with the satellite of 500 km altitude when the initial LTAN were set to 06:00, 09:00, 12:00, 15:00, and 18:00. Different profiles of the inclination and LTAN have been obtained according to the satellite altitude decay and initial LTAN value. Using the profiles of the inclination and LTAN, initial orbital elements can be derived for minimizing the LTAN variations during the mission life time of the sun-synchronous satellite without any on-board thrusters for orbit maneuvers

Analysis of COMS-1 North-South Station Keeping Method

The perturbations caused by the Sun and the Moon are predominantly out-of-plane effects causing a change in the inclination and in the right ascension of ascending node of a geostationary satellite. Due to the change of the inclination, subsatellite latitude of the geostationary satellite has a daily variations of the same magnitude of the inclination. Therefore we need a facility to control the orbital inclination and right ascension of ascending node for maintaining the satellite position in specified subsatellite latitude boundary using thrusters. In this paper we studied North-South station keeping strategies of the COMS-1 such as Track-Back Chord Target (TBCT) method, Maximum Compensation Target (MCT) method and Minimum Fuel Target (MFT) method. We accomplished those North-South station keeping maneuvers for one year starting from December 2008. The required velocity increments to maintain the satellite are estimated as MCT 52.6065m/s, TBCT 52.2383m/s, MFT 51.5428m/s, respectively. We demonstrated that TBCT and MFT methods are proper to North-South station keeping for COMS-1. MFT method showed the minimum required velocity increments whereas TBCT traced narrow inclination boundary area for North-South station keeping

Validation of GPS Based Precise Orbits Using SLR Observations

In this study, the YLPODS (Yonsei Laser-ranging Precision Orbit Determination System) is developed for POD using SLR (Satellite Laser Ranging) NP (Normal Point) observations. The performance of YLPODS is tested using SLR NP observations of TOPEX/POSEIDON and CHAMP satellite. JPL`s POE (Precision Orbit Ephemeris) is assumed to be true orbit, the measurement residual RMS (Root Mean Square) and the orbit accuracy (radial, along-track, cross-track) are investigated. The validation of POD using GPS (Global Positioning System) raw data is achieved by YLPODS performance and highly accurate SLR NP observations. YGPODS (Yonsei GPS-based Precision Orbit Determination System) is used for generating GPS based precise orbits for TOPEX/POSEIDON. The initial orbit for YLPODS is derived from the YGPODS results. To validate the YGPODS results the range residual of the first adjustment of YLPODS is investigated. The YLPODS results using SLR NP observations of TOPEX/POSEIDON and CHAMP satellite show that the range residual is less than 10 cm and the orbit accuracy is about 1 m level. The validation results of the YGPODS orbits using SLR NP observations of the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite show that the range residual is less than 10 cm. This result predicts that the accuracy of this GPS based orbits is about 1m level and it is compared with JPL`s POE. Thus this result presents that the YLPODS can be used for POD validation using SLR NP observations such as STSAT-2 and KOMPSAT-5