TAOS Orbit Determination Results Using Global Positioning Satellites

Abstract

Orbit determination results for the Air Force Phillips Laboratory's Technology for Autonomous Operational Survivability (TAOS) satellite using a Rockwell AST V Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver are presented in this paper. Under a cooperative effort, GPS orbit determination technology developed at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has been transferred to the U.S. Air Force. JPL's post processing differential GPS software MIRAGE [1] was modified to perform precise orbit determination for the TAOS satellite. Reconstructed TAOS position accuracies of 10 meters (3 sigma) are the objective. With four days of data, three-dimensional positions of less than 3 meters (1 sigma) have been achieved with overlapping orbit determination spans. Orbit determination results are also compared with those of the on-board GPS receiver's navigation solutions and with the Air Force's Satellite Control Network SGLS processing.