GNSS Receiver Based Navigation of Satellites in Geotransfer Orbits

An open source simulator for a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) based onboard navigation of satellites is presented. The structure and building blocks of the simulator, as well as the data sets included with the simulator, are described. To illustrate the application of the simulator, it is used to evaluate the navigation performance that can be expected by a GNSS-receiver based navigation system on board a satellite in a geotransfer orbit. Three phases of the geotransfer orbit are analyzed, first an early orbit phase where the satellite has a highly eccentric orbit, secondly an intermediate orbit phase where the altitude of the satellite periodically is close to that of the GNSS-satellites, and fi- nally a late orbit phase, when the satellite is almost in a geostationary orbit, but has not yet rotated into its final attitude. The simulations show that with a GNSS-receiver with an acquisition and tracking threshold of 27 [dB ? Hz] and two high gain antennas, the root mean square position and velocity error can throughout all three orbit phases be kept below 1000 [m] and 30 [mm/s], respectively.QC 20151217