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The System: Celebrating 20 Years of GPS

April 1, 2015  - By

April marks the 20th anniversary of GPS FOC. U.S. Air Force Space Command declared Full Operational Capability (FOC) for the GPS constellation April 27, 1995, signifying the system met all requirements with 24 operational Block II/IIA satellites in their assigned orbital slots and providing both the military Precise Positioning Service (PPS) performance standard and the civil Standard Positioning Service (SPS) performance standard.

FOC was formally announced on July 17, 1995.

GPS IIF-9 Launch on March 25

GPSIIF-launch-ULA-8As this magazine went to press on March 19, the U.S. Air Force’s ninth GPS Block IIF satellite (GPS IIF-9) was being readied for a March 25 launch [since successfully launched]. The satellite was encapsulated in the Delta IV rocket’s 4-meter-diameter nose cone at a processing facility, and moved to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 37 for mating to its booster inside the mobile service tower.

Launch is scheduled for March 25 at 2:36 p.m. U.S. Eastern time from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. GPS IIF-9 marks the 29th Delta IV launch and the 57th operational GPS satellite to launch on a ULA or heritage launch vehicle.

CNAV Performance Compares Favorably to Legacy Signals

A March 5 announcement concerning the new L2C and L5 GPS civil signals states: “CNAV Message Types 10, 11, 30 and 33 are currently transmitted on seven GPS IIR-M (L2C) and eight GPS IIF satellites (L2C and L5). A Modernized Navigation (MODNAV) Tool integrated with the GPS ground control software (Architecture Evolution Plan or AEP) is generating the CNAV data messages. Daily CNAV uploads began December 31, 2014, and the U.S. Air Force reports that signal performance of CNAV matches or slightly outperforms Legacy performance: average user range error (RMS URE) from 25 February – 3 March 2015 was 0.50 m for Legacy and 0.57 m for Modernized; best week for Modernized signals since the broadcast initiated April 2014 was 0.42 m for 6 – 13 January 2015.

“Users are reminded that these CNAV signals are ‘pre-operational’ and should be used with discretion until they become fully operational; the L5 message is currently set unhealthy,” concluded Rick Hamilton, CGSIC Executive Secretariat, USCG Navigation Center, in a status email to the Civil Global Positioning System Service Interface Committee (CGSIC).

Galileo Six, Seven, Eight: Lay Them Straight

The original (in red) and corrected (in blue) orbits of the fifth and sixth Galileo satellites, along with that of the first four satellites (green).

The original (in red) and corrected (in blue) orbits of the fifth and sixth Galileo satellites, along with that of the first four satellites (green).

On March 17, some stations participating in the International GNSS Service Multi-GNSS Experiment acquired E1 and E5a signals from Galileo 6 (FOC-FM2, GSAT0202). The satellite is using pseudorandom noise code E14.

This development follows the successful repositioning of the sixth Galileo satellite into a corrected orbit, which will now allow detailed testing to assess the performance of its navigation payload. A 20-meter-diameter antenna at the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Redu center in Belgium will study the strength and shape of the navigation signals at high resolution.

Launched with the fifth Galileo last August, its initial elongated orbit saw it traveling as high as 25,900 kilometers above Earth and down to a low point of 13,713 kilometers — confusing the Earth sensor used to point its navigation antennas at the ground.

A recovery plan was devised between ESA’s Galileo team, flight dynamics specialists at ESA’s ESOC operations centre and France’s CNES space agency, as well as satellite operator SpaceOpal and manufacturer OHB. This involved gradually raising the lowest point of the satellites’ orbits more than 3,500 km while also making them more circular.

The fifth Galileo entered its corrected orbit at the end of November 2014. Both its navigation and search-and-rescue payloads were switched on the following month to begin testing. Now the sixth satellite has reached the same orbit.

This latest salvage operation began in mid-January and concluded six weeks later, with 14 maneuvers performed in total. Its corrected position is effectively a mirror image of the fifth satellite’s, placing the pair on opposite sides of the planet. The exposure of the two to the harmful Van Allen Belt radiation has been greatly reduced, helping to ensure future reliability.

The corrected orbit means they will overfly the same location on the ground every 20 days. This compares with a standard Galileo repeat pattern of every 10 days, helping to synchronize their ground tracks with the rest of the constellation.

“I am very proud of what our teams at ESA and industry have achieved,” said Marco Falcone, head of the Galileo system office. “Our intention was to recover this mission from the very early days after the wrong orbit injection. This is what we are made for at ESA.”

The decision whether to use the two satellites for navigation and search-and-rescue purposes will be ultimately made by the European Commission, as the system owner, based on the in-orbit test results and the system’s ability to provide navigation data from the improved orbits.

March 27 Launch Date for Galileo Seven, Eight

The seventh and eighth Galileo satellites, set for launch together on March 27, were placed onto the Fregat upper stage of their Soyuz ST-B launcher in mid-March. [The satellites have been successfully launched.]

The Fregat stage will hold the satellites in place during their four-hour flight into orbit 22,300 kilometers above the Earth. Then, at the correct altitude, the two satellites are sprung away in opposing directions.

The Fregat upper stage was blamed for the  August mis-delivery of Galileo satellites five and six. The root cause of the anomaly producing the wrong orbits was a shortcoming in the system thermal analysis performed during stage design, according to findings by an independent inquiry board.

The anomaly occurred during the flight of the launcher’s fourth stage, Fregat. It occurred about 35 minutes after liftoff, and was due to a temporary interruption of the joint hydrazine propellant supply to the Fregat thrusters. The interruption in the flow was caused by freezing of the hydrazine, resulting from the proximity of hydrazine and cold helium feed lines, these lines being connected by the same support structure, which acted as a thermal bridge. Ambiguities in the design documents allowed the installation of this type of thermal bridge between the two lines.

IRNSS Launch Scheduled for March 29

The launch of the fourth satellite for the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System, previously scheduled for March 9, was postponed until March 29 at 13:00 UTC, due to the replacement of a faulty telemetry transmitter on the satellite. [The satellite has been successfully launched.]

IRNSS-1D will be fourth in the seven-spacecraft IRNSS constellation.

BeiDou, Too, in Late March

There are indications that the first satellite in the BeiDou Phase 3 expansion may be launched by the end of March [since successfully launched]. Apparently, a BeiDou satellite has been shipped to the Xichang launch site, and tracking ships have left port for the open ocean. Also, a philatelic first day cover for the launch (a common Chinese practice) has been issued with a March 2015 inscription. This is likely a launch of a medium Earth orbit (MEO)satellite.

Where It All Began for Galileo and EGNOS

The European Space Agency issued a press information notice on June 11, 1995 — in the same timeframe as the GPS FOC announcement noted on the previous page — titled “Europe’s Contribution to a Navigation Satellite System.”

“The European Commission, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the civil aviation organisation EUROCONTROL have agreed to cooperate on a joint programme).  The European Satellite Navigation (ESN) Action Programme, elements of which are GNSS-1 [First Generation Global Navigation Satellite System] and GNSS-2, is planned to run for five years (from mid-1995 to mid-2000) with a budget of the order of 150 million euros.

National aviation authorities and the parties involved in the action programme see Europe’s commitment to satellite navigation as being of strategic significance for the future.

“The main objective of the programme is to develop technologies that will ensure that data from the two existing Global Navigation Satellite Systems — the United States’ GPS and Russia’s GLONASS — which are both under military control, will also be available for civil use on a reliable basis and will provide the requisite precision.  In parallel, studies will be conducted in order to make preparations for a second generation satellite-navigation and positioning system (GNSS-2), to be deployed as from 2005.

“In the first phase (GNSS-1), ESA’s contribution to the joint action programme will be EGNOS [European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service].  Satellites stationed in geostationary orbit at an altitude of about 36,000 km will relay to aircraft, shipping or road vehicles information that will enable the recipients to determine their actual positions with greater precision than is possible by using GPS/GLONASS data alone.  Civil users of those systems receive artificially degraded data deviating by about 100 metres.  EGNOS, will enable in particular, to increase the number of satellites that can be seen by a given user within the geostationary broadcast area.

“Around the period 2005–2008, after completing a trial period, the new system is due to be used as sole means.” 

Galileo, Previously GNSS-2

“It is planned to develop GNSS-2 in the period between 2005 and 2020, building on experience acquired under GNSS-1.  From the technical viewpoint, the second generation will be a considerable improvement on the first in terms of reliability, precision and availability. 

“However, if Europe were to confine itself to developing the relevant technologies, its industry would have only a very slim chance of being involved in the construction of the satellites for the system or in the control and user segments for a second-generation civil system (GNSS-2). Given that U.S. and Russian firms are the current leaders in this area, it is necessary for strategic reasons for Europe to carry out a comprehensive development and demonstration programme as it must be able to prove it has the requisite capabilities before GNSS-2 becomes operational, which, in the experts’ opinion, will be from 2005.

“The time schedule foreseen for the different steps can be summarised as follows:

  • GNSS-1 mission analysis and definition studies: mid-1995 to mid-1996
  • European GNSS-1 pre-operational mission (task 1): to end 1997. Development of the geostationary network, following the Inmarsat III launch and first ranging demonstration phase
  • GNSS-1 (task 2): 1996 to end 1998. In parallel to the development of the network, the Ground Integrity Channel will be set up, followed by a second demonstration phase
  • GNSS-1 (task 3): 1997 to early 2000. Wide Area Differential service for precision approaches to be set up and tested
  • Introduction of GNSS-1 as sole means: 2000/2003.”

GPS World is indebted to Richard Langley’s CANSPACE archive of historical documents for this note of interest.

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