Orbit determination and prediction for Beidou GEO satellites at the time of the spring/autumn equinox

Geostationary (GEO) satellites form an indispensable component of the constellation of Beidou navigation system (BDS). The ephemerides, or predicted orbits of these GEO satellites(GEOs), are broadcast to positioning, navigation, and timing users. User equivalent ranging error (UERE) based on broadcast message is better than 1.5 m (root formal errors: RMS) for GEO satellites. However, monitoring of UERE indicates that the orbital prediction precision is significantly degraded when the Sun is close to the Earth’s equatorial plane (or near spring or autumn Equinox). Error source analysis shows that the complicated solar radiation pressure on satellite buses and the simple box-wing model maybe the major contributor to the deterioration of orbital precision. With the aid of BDS’ two-way frequency and time transfer between the GEOs and Beidou time (BDT, that is maintained at the master control station), we propose a new orbit determination strategy, namely three-step approach of the multi-satellite precise orbit determination (MPOD). Pseudo-range (carrier phase) data are transformed to geometric range (biased geometric range) data without clock offsets; and reasonable empirical acceleration parameters are estimated along with orbital elements to account for the error in solar radiation pressure modeling. Experiments with Beidou data show that using the proposed approach, the GEOs’ UERE when near the autumn Equinox of 2012 can be improved to 1.3 m from 2.5 m (RMS), and the probability of user equivalent range error (UERE)<2.0 m can be improved from 50% to above 85%.