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MGEX Metadata

MGEX Metadata

Satellite Metadata

Satellite metadata are vital for accurate modeling of GNSS data. These include unique identifiers like SVN, COSPAR ID, Satellite Catalog Number (NORAD ID); PRN/SVN mapping; SVN/frequency channel mapping for GLONASS; satellite mass; center of mass; transmit antenna and laser retroreflector array eccentricities; and transmit power. More details on this topic are given in the IGS white paper on satellite and operations information for generation of precise GNSS orbit and clock products.

Metadata for GalileoQZSS, and BeiDou have already been published by the European GNSS Service Center, the Cabinet Office (CAO), Government of Japan and the China Satellite Navigation Office (CSNO). CAO also provides operational history information including orbit maintenance maneuvers and attitude switches.

CAVE:

  • releases prior to igs_metadata_2031.snx had an erroneous width of the frequency channel number (A4 instead of A3).
  • different types of BDS-3 SECM satellites (A/B) have been introduced in release 2110.

Satellite metadata format description

In order to be able to store and exchange the GNSS satellite metadata in a standardized format, an extension of the solution independent exchange (SINEX) format. The version 1.00 of this format was approved by the IGS Governing Board in December 2022:

 

References

Cabinet Office (2017a) QZS-1 satellite information. Tech. Rep. SPI_QZS1, Government of Japan, National Space Policy Secretariat, latest version available at https://qzss.go.jp/en/technical/qzssinfo/index.html
Cabinet Office (2018a) QZS-2 satellite information. Tech. Rep. SPI-QZS2_B, Government of Japan, National Space Policy Secretariat, latest version available at https://qzss.go.jp/en/technical/qzssinfo/index.html
Cabinet Office (2018b) QZS-3 satellite information. Tech. Rep. SPI-QZS3_A, Government of Japan, National Space Policy Secretariat, latest version available at https://qzss.go.jp/en/technical/qzssinfo/index.html
Cabinet Office (2018c) QZS-4 satellite information. Tech. Rep. SPI-QZS4_B, Government of Japan, National Space Policy Secretariat, latest version available at https://qzss.go.jp/en/technical/qzssinfo/index.html
Cabinet Office (2018d) The history information of QZS-1 operation. Tech. Rep. OHI-QZS1, Government of Japan, National Space Policy Secretariat, latest version available at https://qzss.go.jp/en/technical/qzssinfo/index.html
Cabinet Office (2018e) The history information of QZS-2 operation. Tech. Rep. OHI-QZS2, Government of Japan, National Space Policy Secretariat, latest version available at https://qzss.go.jp/en/technical/qzssinfo/index.html
Cabinet Office (2018f) The history information of QZS-3 operation. Tech. Rep. OHI-QZS3, Government of Japan, National Space Policy Secretariat, latest version available at https://qzss.go.jp/en/technical/qzssinfo/index.html
Cabinet Office (2018g) The history information of QZS-4 operation. Tech. Rep. OHI-QZS4, Government of Japan, National Space Policy Secretariat, latest version available at https://qzss.go.jp/en/technical/qzssinfo/index.html
Czopek F, Shollenberger S (1993) Description and performance of the GPS Block I and II L-band antenna and link budget. In: Proceedings of ION GPS 1993, Salt Lake City, UT, pp 37-43
Fatkulin R, Kossenko V, Storozhev S, Zvonar V, Chebotarev V (2012) Glonass space segment: satellite constellation, Glonass-M and Glonass-K spacecraft main features. In: ION GNSS 2012, Nashville, TN, pp 3912-3930
Hegarty C (2017) The Global Positioning System (GPS). In: Teunissen P, Montenbruck O (eds) Springer Handbook of Global Navigation Satellite Systems, Springer, chap 7, pp 197-218, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42928-1_7
Kramer HJ (2002) Observation of the Earth and Its Environment: Survey of Missions and Sensors, 4th edn. Springer, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-56294-5
Montenbruck O (2017) IGS White Paper on Satellite and Operations Information for Generation of Precise GNSS Orbit and Clock Products. Version 2017/10/21, IGS Multi-GNSS Working Group. https://files.igs.org/pub/resource/working_groups/multi_gnss/Whitepaper_SatelliteMetaData_IGS_171021.pdf
Montenbruck O, Schmid R, Mercier F, Steigenberger P, Noll C, Fatkulin R, Kogure S, Ganeshan A (2015) GNSS satellite geometry and attitude models. Advances in Space Research 56(6):1015-1029, DOI 10.1016/j.asr.2015.06.019
Montenbruck O and Steigenberger P (2020) IGS White Paper on Satellite and Operations Information for Generation of Precise GNSS Orbit and Clock Products. Version 2020/02/04, IGS Multi-GNSS Working Group, https://files.igs.org/pub/resource/working_groups/multi_gnss/Whitepaper_SatelliteMetaData_IGS_200204.pdf
Revnivykh S, Bolkunov A, Serdyukov A, Montenbruck O (2017) GLONASS. In: Teunissen P, Montenbruck O (eds) Springer Handbook of Global Navigation Satellite Systems, Springer, chap 8, pp 219-245, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42928-1_8
Sosnica K, Thaller D, Dach R, Steigenberger P, Beutler G, Arnold D, Jäggi A (2015) Satellite laser ranging to GPS and GLONASS. Journal of Geodesy 89(7):725-743, DOI 10.1007/s00190-015-0810-8
Steigenberger P, Thoelert S, Montenbruck O (2018) GNSS satellite transmit power and its impact on orbit determination. Journal of Geodesy 92(6):609-624, DOI 10.1007/s00190-017-1082-2
Xu X, Li M, Li W, Liu J (2018) Performance analysis of BeiDou-2/BeiDou-3e combined solution with emphasis on precise orbit determination and precise point positioning. Sensors 18(1):135, DOI 10.3390/s18010135
Zandbergen R, Navarro D (2008) Specification of Galileo and GIOVE space segment properties relevant for satellite laser ranging. Tech. Rep. ESA-EUING-TN/10206, iss. 3.2, 08/05/2008, ESA/ESOC, Darmstadt
Zhao Q, Wang C, Guo J, Wang B, Liu J (2018) Precise orbit and clock determination for BeiDou-3 experimental satellites with yaw attitude analysis. GPS Solutions 22:4, DOI 10.1007/s10291-017-0673-y

Satellite Identifier

The SATELLITE/IDENTIFIER block contains only unique information that does not require a validity interval. It supersedes the existing SATELLITE/ID block: the time-dependent PRN assignment has been moved to the new SATELLITE/PRN block, Satellite Catalog Numbers (aka NORAD-ID) and a comment field have been added, and new block names have been defined (old block names denote ANTEX antenna type!). The comment field contains the launch date and common name of the satellite if available.

Satellite Plane (Draft for version 1.10)

The SATELLITE/PLANE block provides provides information about the orbital plane of a satellite within the constellation as well as the slot within the plane.

Satellite PRN Assignment

The SATELLITE/PRN block supersedes the existing SATELLITE/ID block. It only contains the mapping between pseudo-random noise (PRN) number and space vehicle number (SVN).

GLONASS Frequency Channel

The SATELLITE/FREQUENCY_CHANNEL block provides the mapping between SVN and frequency channels of the GLONASS frequency devision multiple access (FDMA) technology.

Satellite Mass

A mass history is currently provided for selected Galileo and all QZSS satellites.

Satellite Center of Mass

The values refer to agreed-upon origin (e.g., origin of mechanical reference system defined by manufacturer). The use of zero values if no CoM location is available is possible but deprecated.

Satellite Eccentricity

The SATELLITE/ECCENTRICITY block provides equipment locations for use in measurement modeling (antennas, retro-reflectors, etc.). The values refer to an agreed-upon origin (e.g., origin of mechanical reference system defined by manufacturer) and IGS conventions for orientation of spacecraft body axes. The same origin applies for all devices and the center-of-mass of a given satellite. Users and providers are responsible to ensure the consistency of SATELLITE/ECCENTRICITY and SATELLITE/COM blocks.

Old and New PCO Concept

Current ANTEX conventions imply the use of the center-of-mass as “reference point” for GNSS antennas (old in the above figure). This convention must be retained for SINEX up to the release of new ANTEX format. The definition of block-specific antenna reference points is encouraged for all GNSSs (new in the above figure). These are already available for Galileo IOV and FOC. The GNSS antenna names in the current IGS metadata SINEX file must match those in rcv_ant.tab for consistency with the current ANTEX file. New names should be defined when transitioning to mechanically defined antenna reference points. A list of old and new GNSS device names is given below. CAVE: Antenna names are different from block names! In version 1.4 of the ANTEX format, there are no entries for multiple L-band antennas as already employed on, e.g. GLO-K1 (R801) and QZSS.

Current (ANTEX 1.4 compatible)

Future (antenna and LRA reference points)

The technique-specific observation type indicator (T) is P for GNSS and L for SLR. Current SLR eccentricities refer to the “phase center”. This has to be replaced by the reference point for use with nadir-angle dependent range correction.

Satellite Transmit Power

Satellite transmit power is needed for the computation of antenna thrust. The transmit power values for QZSS are provided by the manufacturer, whereas the other values originate from high-gain antenna measurements.

Block and Device Names

GNSS block and device names

The old GNSS device names are compatible with the current ANTEX file. New device names are proposed along with a new version of the ANTEX format to support multiple GNSS antennas on a single GNSS satellite like GLO_K1A and the different QZSS satellites.

Block Device Name
GNSS old
Device Name
GNSS new
Description
GPS-I BLOCK I LANT_GPS_I GPS Block I
GPS-II BLOCK II LANT_GPS_II GPS Block II
GPS-IIA BLOCK IIA LANT_GPS_IIA GPS Block IIA
GPS-IIR-A BLOCK IIR-A LANT_GPS_IIR-A GPS Block IIR (original antenna)
GPS-IIR-B BLOCK IIR-B LANT_GPS_IIR-B GPS Block IIR (new antenna)
GPS-IIR-M BLOCK IIR-M LANT_GPS_IIR-M GPS Block IIR-M
GPS-IIF BLOCK IIF LANT_GPS_IIF GPS Block IIF
GPS-III BLOCK IIIA LANT_GPS_III GPS Block III
GLO GLONASS LANT_GLO GLONASS
GLO-M GLONASS-M LANT_GLO_M GLONASS-M+
GLO-M+ GLONASS-M LANT_GLO_M+ GLONASS-M
GLO-K1A GLONASS-K1 LANT_GLO_K1A GLONASS-K1
L3ANT_GLO_K1A
GLO-K1B GLONASS-K1 LANT_GLO_K1B GLONASS-K1
GAL-0A GALILEO-0A LANT_GIOVEA GIOVE-A
GAL-0B GALILEO-0B LANT_GIOVEB GIOVE-B
GAL-1 GALILEO-1 LANT_GAL_1 Galileo IOV
GAL-2 GALILEO-2 LANT_GAL_2 Galileo FOC
BDS-2M BEIDOU-2M LANT_BDS_2M BeiDou-2 MEO
BDS-2I BEIDOU-2I LANT_BDS_2I BeiDou-2 IGSO
BDS-2G BEIDOU-2G LANT_BDS_2G BeiDou-2 GEO
BDS-3SI-CAST BEIDOU-3SI-CAST LANT_BDS_3SI_CAST BeiDou-3 experimental IGSO, CAST
BDS-3SI-SECM BEIDOU-3SI-SECM LANT_BDS_3SI_SECM BeiDou-3 experimental IGSO, CAS
BDS-3SM-CAST BEIDOU-3SM-CAST LANT_BDS_3SM_CAST BeiDou-3 experimental MEO, CAST
BDS-3SM-SECM BEIDOU-3SM-SECM LANT_BDS_3SM_SECM BeiDou-3 experimental MEO, CAS
BDS-3M-CAST BEIDOU-3M-CAST LANT_BDS_3M_CAST BeiDou-3 MEO, CAST
BDS-3M-SECM-A BEIDOU-3M-SECM LANT_BDS_3M_SECM_A BeiDou-3 MEO, SECM (original bus)
BDS-3M-SECM-B LANT_BDS_3M_SECM_B BeiDou-3 MEO, SECM (new bus)
BDS-3G BEIDOU-3G LANT_BDS_3G BeiDou-3 GEO
BDS-3I BEIDOU-3I LANT_BDS_3I BeiDou-3 IGSO
QZS-1 QZSS LANT_QZS_1 QZSS Block I
L1SANT_QZS_1
QZS-2I QZSS-2I LANT_QZS_2I QZSS Block II IGSO
L1SANT_QZS_2I
L5SANT_QZS_2I
QZS-2G QZSS-2G LANT_QZS_2G QZSS Block II GEO
L1SANT_QZS_2G
L5SANT_QZS_2G
QZS-2A QZSS-2A LANT_QZS_2A QZSS Block IIA
L1SANT_QZS_2A
L5SANT_QZS_2A
IRS-1I IRNSS-1I LANT_IRNSS_1I NAVIC IGSO
IRS-1G IRNSS-1G LANT_IRNSS_1G NAVIC GEO
SLR retroreflector device names
LRA name Description
LRA_GPS_IIA GPS IIA satellites
LRA_GPS_IIIF GPS IIIF satellites
LRA_GLO_396_AL GLONASS sats, 396 prisms (irreg. planar, Al coating)
LRA_GLO_132_AL GLONASS sats, 132 prisms (irreg. circle, Al coating)
LRA_GLO_M_AL GLONASS-M sats, 112 prisms and Al coating
LRA_GLO_M GLONASS-M sats, 112 prisms (uncoated)
LRA_GLO_K1 GLONASS-K1 sats, 123 prisms (ring array, uncoated?)
LRA_GIOVEA GIOVE-A LRA, 76 prisms
LRA_GIOVEB GIOVE-B LRA, 67 prisms
LRA_GAL_1 Galileo IOV satellites, 84 prisms
LRA_GAL_2 Galileo FOC satellites, 60 prisms
LRA_BDS_2M BeiDou-2 MEO satellites, 42 prisms
LRA_BDS_2GI BeiDou-2 GEO and IGSO satellites, 90 prisms
LRA_BDS_3SM BeiDou-3S MEO satellites (same as BDS_2M?)
LRA_BDS_3SI BeiDou-3S IGSO satellites (same as BDS_2GI?)
LRA_BDS_3M BeiDou-3 MEO satellites (same as BDS_3M?)
LRA_BDS_3GI BeiDou-3 GEO and IGSO satellites (same as BDS_2GI?)
LRA_QZSS_1 QZS-1 (QZSS Block I) satellite, 56 prisms (uncoated)
LRA_QZSS_2 QZS-2 (QZSS Block II GEO & IGSO), 56 prisms (coated)
LRA_IRNSS IRNSS satellites, 40 prisms

Last Updated on 22 May 2024 11:29 UTC

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