A two-step method to detect broadcast ephemeris unavailable periods caused by BeiDou satellite orbital maneuvers

Abstract

The space constellation of the BeiDou navigation satellite system (BDS) is a hybrid constellation containing medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites, geostationary earth orbit (GEO) satellites, and inclined geosynchronous orbit (IGSO) satellites. Due to the geosynchronous characteristics of GEO and IGSO, GEO satellites and IGSO satellites often need to perform orbital maneuvers, which can affect the signal-in-space (SIS) availability performance of BeiDou satellites. A two-step detection method for BeiDou satellite orbital maneuvers has been proposed in this paper. The first step is to identify orbital maneuvers based on time series analysis of broadcast ephemeris, and the second step is to verify orbital maneuvers based on bidirectional orbit prediction. The two-step detection method was used to detect the orbital maneuvers of BeiDou satellites in 2019. Through the double guarantees of identification and verification, the detection accuracy of BeiDou satellite orbital maneuvers has been effectively improved. And the orbital maneuver detection results are continued to be used to assess the SIS availability of BeiDou satellites. The results show that the availability loss of GEO satellite orbital maneuvers is about 0.45%–1.07%, and the availability loss of IGSO satellite orbital maneuvers is about 0.12%–0.19%.