CoAuthors

Bruce Haines (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States)

In this study we present early results from our evaluation of the GPS tracking data from the Sentinel-3A mission. We assess both medium-accuracy and precise GPS-based orbit solutions, data noise, typical tracking metrics, as well as the capability to resolve integer ambiguities. We use sea surface height crossover variance and satellite laser ranging observations as independent metrics to evaluate our orbit solutions.

Preliminary results demonstrate radial orbit precision (as measured using orbit overlaps from neighboring daily solutions) of 3 mm (RMS). Using the pre-launch antenna calibration, the median of the daily RMS of dual-frequency ionosphere free phase and range residuals are 0.6 and 27 cm, respectively. The receiver is tracking an average of 7.5 GPS satellites, and continuous tracks have an average duration of 26 minutes.