Communication via satellite begins when the satellite is positioned in the desired orbital position. Ground stations can communicate with LEO (Low Earth Orbiting) satellites only when the satellite is in their visibility region. The ground station’s ideal horizon plane is in fact the visibility region under 0<sup>o</sup> of elevation angle. Because of natural barriers or too high buildings in urban areas, practical (visible) horizon plane differs from the ideal one. The duration of the visibility and so the communication duration varies for each LEO satellite pass at the ground station, since LEO satellites move too fast over the Earth. The range between the ground station and the LEO satellite depends on maximal elevation of satellite’s path above the ground station. The dimension of the horizon plane depends on satellite’s orbital attitude. The range variations between the ground station and the satellite, and then ground station horizon plane simulation for low Earth orbiting satellites as a function of orbital attitude is presented. The range impact and horizon plane variations on communication duration between the ground station and LEO satellites are given
LEO (Low Earth Orbit) environmental satellites provide continuous coverage of Earth, supplying meteorological and oceanic observation data which are important in aerospace and maritime. The missions of such satellites are mainly based on photo imagery. For photo imagery, it is also important that the area observed from the satellite is treated under the same lighting conditions. This can be achieved by keeping the orbital plane position constant relative to the Sun due to the Earth’s motion around the Sun, defined as orbital Sun synchronization. The line of nodes defines the orientation of the satellite’s orbital plane in space. Nodal regression is defined as the shift of the orbit’s line of nodes over time, as Earth revolves around the Sun. Nodal regression is caused by the Earth’s oblateness. Nodal regression is a very useful feature, especially used to synchronize low Earth circular orbits with the Sun. Nodal regression depends on orbital attitude and orbital inclination angle. This paper provides an inclination window calculation for different attitudes in order to maintain orbital Sun synchronization.
The use of GPS is becoming increasingly popular for real-time navigation systems. To ensure that satellite failures are detected and excluded at the receiver is of high importance for the integrity of the satellite navigation system. The focus of this paper is to implement a fault detection and exclusion algorithm in a software GPS receiver in order to provide timely warnings to the user when it is not advisable to use the GPS system for navigation. The GPS system currently provides some basic integrity information to users via the navigation message, but it is not timely enough for safetycritical applications. RAIM is a means of providing integrity with the capability of detecting when a satellite failure or a measurement error has occurred. It is the simplest and most cost effective technique for integrity monitoring. After applying the iterative fault detection and the exclusion algorithm, a significant improvement in positioning accuracy is achieved.
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