Precise Orbit Determination Using Satellite Radar Ranging

Precise orbit determination can be achieved using only range measurements (no angle measurements) collected from several radars in a regional network. As uncompensated range biases are comparable to Global Positioning System pseudorange errors, 1σ1σ position and velocity errors smaller than 10 m and 1cm/s1cm/s are possible. Global Positioning System-level accuracies can be achieved rapidly during initial trilateration and maintained for the duration of the satellite pass (e.g., 1000 s) because initial velocity errors are small. Missile defense radars can benefit from trilateration because accurate orbit determination and excellent covariance fidelity can be achieved on a very short timeline. Covariance fidelity is improved with a recursive trilateration filter that characterizes the effects of range measurement biases on the estimation process. An important finding is that, for a multiple radar network, trilateration is more accurate than fused triangulation with uncalibrated angle biases. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]