Undifferenced Kinematic Precise Orbit Determination of Swarm and GRACE-FO Satellites from GNSS Observations

Abstract

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites can be used for remote sensing and gravity field recovery, while precise orbit determination (POD) is vital for LEO satellite applications. However, there are some systematic errors when using the LEO satellite orbits released by different agencies in multi-satellite-based applications, e.g., Swarm and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment-Follow-On (GRACE-FO), as different GNSS precise orbit and clock products are used as well as processing strategies and software. In this paper, we performed undifferenced kinematic PODs for Swarm and GRACE-FO satellites simultaneously over a total of 14 days by using consistent International Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Service (IGS) precise orbit and clock products. The processing strategy based on an undifferenced ionosphere-free combination and a least squares method was applied for Swarm and GRACE-FO satellites. Furthermore, the quality control for the kinematic orbits was adopted to mitigate abrupt position offsets. Moreover, the accuracy of the kinematic orbits solution was evaluated by carrier phase residual analysis and Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) observations, as well as comparison with official orbits. The results show that the kinematic orbits solution is better than 4 cm, according to the SLR validation. With quality control, the accuracy of the kinematic orbit solution is improved by 2.49 % for the Swarm-C satellite and 6.98 % for the GRACE-D satellite when compared with their precise orbits. By analyzing the accuracy of the undifferenced kinematic orbit solution, the reliability of the LEO orbit determination is presented in terms of processing strategies and quality control procedures.