Initial orbit determination of BDS-3 satellites based on new code signals

For the two newly launched satellites(PRN number 27 and 28) of the future global BeiDou navigation satellite system(BDS-3), there is no available broadcast ephemeris data and other initial orbit information, but the initial orbit is the fundamental of the comprehensive analysis of the satellites and their signals. Precise orbit determination(POD) also requires determination of a priori initial value with a certain precision in order to avoid problems such as filter divergence during POD. Compared with the Newton iteration method, which relies on the initial value, this study utilizes the Bancroft algorithm to directly solve the nonlinear equations with the advantage of numerical stability. The initial orbits of these two satellites are calculated based on new code signals, and their results are analyzed and discussed. The experimental results show that, with the exception of very few epochs, when the new code signal is utilized, the median and robust variance factor of the observed residuals computed using pseudo-range observations and the solved initial orbits are less than 4 and 2 m, respectively. It also shows that this solution can be used for rapid initial orbit recovery after maneuvers of the new BeiDou satellites.

Angles-only initial relative orbit determination algorithm for noncooperative spacecraft proximity operations

This research furthers the development of a closed-form solution to the angles-only initial relative orbit determination problem for non-cooperative target close-in proximity operations when the camera offset from the vehicle center-of-mass allows for range observability.In previous work,the solution to this problem had been shown to be non-global optimal in the sense of least square and had only been discussed in the context of Clohessy–Wiltshire.In this paper,the emphasis is placed on developing a more compact and improved solution to the problem by using state augmentation least square method in the context of the Clohessy–Wiltshire and Tschauner–Hempel dynamics,derivation of corresponding error covariance,and performance analysis for typical rendezvous missions.A two-body Monte Carlo simulation system is used to evaluate the performance of the solution.The sensitivity of the solution accuracy to camera offset,observation period,and the number of observations are presented and discussed.