Session
Poster Session 1
Location
Salt Palace Convention Center, Salt Lake City, UT
Abstract
According to an ESA research report, there are now more than one million pieces of space debris larger than one centimeter in low Earth orbit (LEO) [1]. Conjunction assessment (CA) has been drawing attention in various fields. This study proposes leveraging space borne Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data, including raw pseudorange measurements, to obtain the satellite state vector and covariance for SmallSats or CubeSats. The proposed approach offers the advantage of enabling autonomous CA risk evaluations, while mitigating measurement uncertainties typically associated with ground-based radar systems. Real-time satellite state enables more accurate predictions of future collision probabilities. The COSMIC-2 raw L1 and L2 Pseudorange measurements [2] and GNSS Ephemeris products [3] are used for orbit determination (OD). This paper applies single point positioning to estimate the satellite position and velocity. Collision probability is then computed using NASA’s Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis (CARA) software [4]. The results illustrate that covariance size significantly influences the uncertainty of collision probability. The aforementioned method serves as an innovation, helping satellites maintain the capability to assess potential future collision risks, while being accessible to a growing number of small satellite operators.
Document Type
Event
Preliminary Results for Collision Probability Predicted Using GNSS Ephemeris from CubeSats
Salt Palace Convention Center, Salt Lake City, UT
According to an ESA research report, there are now more than one million pieces of space debris larger than one centimeter in low Earth orbit (LEO) [1]. Conjunction assessment (CA) has been drawing attention in various fields. This study proposes leveraging space borne Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data, including raw pseudorange measurements, to obtain the satellite state vector and covariance for SmallSats or CubeSats. The proposed approach offers the advantage of enabling autonomous CA risk evaluations, while mitigating measurement uncertainties typically associated with ground-based radar systems. Real-time satellite state enables more accurate predictions of future collision probabilities. The COSMIC-2 raw L1 and L2 Pseudorange measurements [2] and GNSS Ephemeris products [3] are used for orbit determination (OD). This paper applies single point positioning to estimate the satellite position and velocity. Collision probability is then computed using NASA’s Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis (CARA) software [4]. The results illustrate that covariance size significantly influences the uncertainty of collision probability. The aforementioned method serves as an innovation, helping satellites maintain the capability to assess potential future collision risks, while being accessible to a growing number of small satellite operators.
