Orbit and Clock Analysis of Compass GEO and IGSO Satellites

Abstract

China is currently focussing on the establishment of its own global navigation satellite system called Compass or Beidou. At present, the Compass constellation provides four usable satellites in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) and five satellites in inclined geosynchronous orbit (IGSO). Based on a network of six Compass-capable receivers orbit and clock parameters of these satellites were determined. The orbit consistency is on the one- to two-decimeter level for the IGSO satellites and on the several decimeter level for the GEO satellites. These values could be confirmed by an independent validation with satellite laser ranging. All Compass clocks show a similar performance but have a slightly lower stability compared to Galileo and the latest generation of GPS satellites. A Compass-only precise point positioning based on the products derived from the six receiver network provides an accuracy of several centimeters compared to the GPS-only results.