2012–2014 China's Earth Observation and Earth Science Development

Human beings are now facing global and regional sustainable development challenges.In China, Earth observation data play a fundamental role in Earth system science research. The support given by Earth observation data is required by many studies, including those on Earth's limited natural resources, the rapid development of economic and social needs, global change, extreme events, food security, water resources, sustainable economic and urban development, and emergency response. Application operation systems in many ministries and departments in China have entered a stage of sustainable development, and the State Key Project of High-Resolution Earth Observation Systems has been progressing since 2006. Earth observation technology in China has entered a period of rapid development.     

The ionosphere and the Latin America VLF Network Mexico (LAVNet-Mex) station

In order to detect and study the ionospheric response to solar flares (transient high energy solar radiation), we have constructed a radio receiver station at Mexico City, which is part of the “Latin American Very low frequency Network” (LAVNet-Mex). This station extends to the northern hemisphere the so called “South American VLF Network”.     

The influence of orbital maneuver on autonomous orbit determination of an extended satellite navigation constellation

The right ascension of the ascending node is unobservable if only the inter-satellite ranging is used for autonomous orbit determination (AOD) of an Earth navigation constellation. However, if an Earth-Moon libration point satellite is added to the Earth navigation constellation to construct an extended navigation constellation, all the orbital elements can be determined with only the inter-satellite ranging. Furthermore, the extended navigation constellation can provide navigation information for interplanetary probes. For such an extended navigation constellation, orbital control needs to be considered due to the instability of the libration-point satellite orbit. This study concerns the influence of satellite orbital maneuver on the AOD of the extended navigation constellation. An AOD method under orbital maneuver is proposed. A low thrust controller is designed to achieve libration point satellite autonomous orbit maintenance by using AOD results. A navigation constellation consisting of three GPS satellites and one libration point satellite are designed for simulation. The simulation results show that libration point satellites can achieve autonomous navigation and autonomous orbit maintenance by only using inter-satellite ranging information. The rotation drift error of the Earth navigation constellation is also suppressed.     

A priori zenith wet delays in the analysis of VLBI CONT sessions

Tropospheric delay is one of the major sources of error in VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) analysis. The principal component of this error can be accurately computed through reliable surface pressure data —hydrostatic delay— yet there is also a small but volatile component —wet delay— which is difficult to be modelled a priori. In VLBI analysis, troposphere delay is typically modelled in the theoretical delays using Zenith Hydrostatic Delays (ZHD) and a dry mapping function. Zenith Wet Delay (ZWD) is not modelled but estimated in the analysis process. This work studies inter alia the impact of including external GNSS estimates to model a priori ZWD in VLBI analysis, as well as other models of a priori ZWD.In a first stage, two different sources of GNSS troposphere products are compared to VLBI troposphere estimates in a period of 5 years. The solution with the best agreement to VLBI results is injected in the VLBI analysis as a priori ZWD value and is compared to other options to model a priori ZWD. The dataset used for this empirical analysis consists of the six CONT campaigns.It has been found that modelling a priori ZWD has no significant impact either on baseline length and coordinates repeatabilities. Nevertheless, modelling a priori ZWD can change the magnitude of the estimated coordinates a few millimeters in the up component with respect to the non-modelling approach. In addition, the influence of a priori ZWD on Earth Orientation Parameters (EOP) and troposphere estimates —Zenith Total Delays (ZTD) and gradients—has also been analysed, resulting in a small but significant impact on both geodetic products.     

End-to-end trajectory design for a solar-sail-only pole-sitter at Venus,Earth, and Mars

The concept of a pole-sitter has been under investigation for many years, showing the capability of a low-thrust propulsion system to maintain a spacecraft at a static position along a planet’s polar axis. From such a position, the spacecraft has a view of the planet’s polar regions equivalent to that of the low- and mid-latitudes from geostationary orbit. Previous work has hinted at the existence of pole-sitters that would only require a solar sail to provide the necessary propulsive thrust if a slight deviation from a position exactly along the polar axis is allowed, without compromising on the continuous view of the planet’s polar region (a so-called quasi-pole-sitter). This paper conducts a further in-depth analysis of these high-potential solar-sail-only quasi-pole-sitters and presents a full end-to-end trajectory design: from launch and transfer to orbit design and orbit control. The results are the next steppingstone towards strengthening the feasibility and utility of these orbits for continuous planetary polar observation.     

Improving orbit prediction accuracy through supervised machine learning

Due to the lack of information such as the space environment condition and resident space objects’ (RSOs’) body characteristics, current orbit predictions that are solely grounded on physics-based models may fail to achieve required accuracy for collision avoidance and have led to satellite collisions already. This paper presents a methodology to predict RSOs’ trajectories with higher accuracy than that of the current methods. Inspired by the machine learning (ML) theory through which the models are learned based on large amounts of observed data and the prediction is conducted without explicitly modeling space objects and space environment, the proposed ML approach integrates physics-based orbit prediction algorithms with a learning-based process that focuses on reducing the prediction errors. Using a simulation-based space catalog environment as the test bed, the paper demonstrates three types of generalization capability for the proposed ML approach: (1) the ML model can be used to improve the same RSO’s orbit information that is not available during the learning process but shares the same time interval as the training data; (2) the ML model can be used to improve predictions of the same RSO at future epochs; and (3) the ML model based on a RSO can be applied to other RSOs that share some common features.     

Astrometric positioning and orbit determination of geostationary satellites

In the project titled “Astrometric Positioning of Geostationary Satellite” (PASAGE), carried out by the Real Instituto y Observatorio de la Armada (ROA), optical observation techniques were developed to allow satellites to be located in the geostationary ring with angular accuracies of up to a few tenths of an arcsec. These techniques do not necessarily require the use of large telescopes or especially dark areas, and furthermore, because optical observation is a passive method, they could be directly applicable to the detection and monitoring of passive objects such as space debris in the geostationary ring.     

Estimation of Galactic Cosmic Ray exposure inside and outside the Earth’s magnetosphere during the recent solar minimum between solar cycles 23 and 24

The evidently low solar activity observed between solar cycles 23 and 24 during the years 2008–2010 led to a substantial increase in the Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) intensity in comparison with preceding solar minima. As the GCRs consist of highly-ionizing charged particles having the potential to cause biological damage, they are a subject of concern for manned missions to space. With the enhanced particle fluxes observed between 2008 and 2010, it is reasonable to assume that the radiation exposure from GCR must have also increased to unusually high levels. In this paper, the GCR exposure outside and inside the Earth’s magnetosphere is numerically calculated for time periods starting from 1970 to the end of 2011 in order to investigate the increase in dose levels during the years 2008–2010 in comparison with the last three solar minima. The dose rates were calculated in a water sphere, used as a surrogate for the human body, either unshielded or surrounded by aluminium shielding of 0.3, 10 or 40 g/cm².     

双星定位系统及其备份星在近地卫星联合定轨建模中的应用

建立了基于双星定位系统距离和观测数据的近地卫星联合定轨模型,设计了相应的数值融合联合定轨算法;为进一步提高近地卫星定轨精度,考虑融合双星及备份星距离和观测数据,建立了基于双星和备份星的近地卫星联合定轨模型及实现算法,并针对不同仿真条件进行了联合定轨仿真实验。仿真计算结果表明,联合定轨方式较传统近地卫星精密定轨方式可以更好地抑制双星星历误差对近地卫星定轨精度的影响,近地卫星和双星的定轨精度均得到了一定程度的提高;同时,融合备份星观测数据的近地卫星联合定轨精度得到进一步改善,达到5.17m。