Arnold, Daniel; Peter, Heike; Mao, Xinyuan; Miller, Alexandra; Jäggi, Adrian (2023). Precise orbit determination of Spire nano satellites. Advances in space research, 72(11), pp. 5030-5046. Elsevier 10.1016/j.asr.2023.10.012
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Spire Global, Inc. operates a growing fleet of currently more than 100 CubeSats in different low Earth orbits for commercial Earth observation. These satellites are equipped with dual-frequency GPS receivers and an attitude determination and control system, allowing for precise orbit determination. For three different satellites and a time span of six months we analyze the performance and quality of the on-board collected GPS and attitude data and employ it for precise orbit determination using the Bernese GNSS Software and Napeos, two independent state-of-the-art GNSS processing software packages. We describe technical details crucial for POD and present and compare the in-flight calibrated phase center variation maps. Reduced-dynamic and kinematic orbits are then inter-compared between the two software packages as well as to the orbit solutions produced by Spire Global. We report pseudo-range and carrier phase residuals at the level of 3–4 m and 8–9 mm RMS and a good agreement between the reduced-dynamic and kinematic orbits of around 5 cm 3D RMS. The reduced-dynamic orbit positions and velocities produced with the two employed software packages agree in average on the level of 6–7 cm and 0.05–0.07 mm/s 3D RMS, while the comparison to the orbits produced by Spire Global is markedly worse with 27–30 cm and 0.32–0.36 mm/s 3D RMS. The presented results are an encouraging first step towards using GPS data from the Spire constellation for geodetic, geophysical and ionospheric applications.
Item Type: |
Journal Article (Original Article) |
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Division/Institute: |
08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Astronomy |
UniBE Contributor: |
Arnold, Daniel, Mao, Xinyuan, Miller, Alexandra, Jäggi, Adrian |
Subjects: |
500 Science > 520 Astronomy |
ISSN: |
0273-1177 |
Publisher: |
Elsevier |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Pierre Fridez |
Date Deposited: |
22 Nov 2023 17:19 |
Last Modified: |
22 Nov 2023 17:19 |
Publisher DOI: |
10.1016/j.asr.2023.10.012 |
Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Low Earth orbiting satellites, Spire, CubeSats, Precise orbit determination, GNSS |
BORIS DOI: |
10.48350/189287 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/189287 |
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