Estimation of antenna phase center offsets for BDS-3 satellites with the metadata and receiver antenna calibrations

Satellite laser ranging to BeiDou-3 satellites: initial performance and contribution to orbit model improvement

“…These differences have remained elusive in SLR analysis due to the lack of observations. The previous studies of the individual BDS-3 MEO satellites show that we may distinguish more groups of satellites than reported by CSNO, e.g., based on the patterns in the ECOM parameters (Zajdel et al 2022) or estimated phase center patterns (Huang et al 2023). To enhance our understanding of BDS-3, particularly regarding orbit modeling issues, SLR measurements covering the whole BDS-3 constellation were crucially required for performing the so-called SLR orbit validation to better characterize the BDS-3 constellation and to remove remaining deficiencies in the modeling of orbit dynamics.…”

“…However, the mean offsets differ systematically for each group, which is particularly noticeable for the BDS-3M-SECM satellites, where offsets vary by up to 15 mm. Differences in mean offsets among satellites may stem from the cumulative effect of errors originating from factors such as uncertainty in LRA offset as provided by CSNO, scale inconsistency between satellite antenna z-PCO and the reference frame, errors in satellite antenna z-PCO values (Zajdel et al 2022;Huang et al 2023), different antenna thrust values, inaccurate satellite surface properties used for orbit models, and station-satellite-dependent range bias, which may not have been appropriately addressed (Rodríguez et al 2019;Strugarek et al 2021;Zajdel et al 2023).…”