AAS 98-192

SIMULTANEOUS ORBIT DETERMINATION OF LARGE SATELLITE CONSTELLATIONS

M. T. Soyka, J. W. Middour - Naval Research Laboratory; J. Fein - Computer Sciences Corp.

Abstract

The techniques of performing simultaneous orbit determination on a large telecommunications satellite constellation are demonstrated. Using the orbit determination program OCEAN, simulated radiometric two-way ranging is used as the baseline tracking type. Intersatellite ranging is used as an additional tracking type and for comparison to the two-way ranging solution. The addition of three-way ranging provides information necessary to determine the relative and absolute system timing. When satellite states are estimated in a simultaneous solution, intersatellite range and three-way range can provide cross-correlation and full covariance information between satellites.

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