Phase Error Modeling and Its Impact on Precise Orbit Determination of GRACE Satellites

Limiting factors for the precise orbit determination (POD) of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite using dual-frequency GPS are nowadays mainly encountered with the in-flight phase error modeling. The phase error is modeled as a systematic and a random component each depending on the direction of GPS signal reception. The systematic part and standard deviation of random part in phase error model are, respectively, estimated by bin-wise mean and standard deviation values of phase postfit residuals computed by orbit determination. By removing the systematic component and adjusting the weight of phase observation data according to standard deviation of random component, the orbit can be further improved by POD approach. The GRACE data of 1–31 January 2006 are processed, and three types of orbit solutions, POD without phase error model correction, POD with mean value correction of phase error model, and POD with phase error model correction, are obtained. The three-dimensional (3D) orbit improvements derived from phase error model correction are 0.0153 m for GRACE A and 0.0131 m for GRACE B, and the 3D influences arisen from random part of phase error model are 0.0068 m and 0.0075 m for GRACE A and GRACE B, respectively. Thus the random part of phase error model cannot be neglected for POD. It is also demonstrated by phase postfit residual analysis, orbit comparison with JPL precise science orbit, and orbit validation with KBR data that the results derived from POD with phase error model correction are better than another two types of orbit solutions generated in this paper.