Fri Apr 10, F. Flechtner
• Sorted by Date • Sorted by Last Name of First Author •
Zhang, Lei, Li, Kai, Tang, Chengpan, Hu, Xiaogong, Shu, Fengchun, and Yang, Yan, 2026. Improving orbit accuracy for LEO navigation satellites by considering time–variable gravity fields. Advances in Space Research, 77(6):7155–7167, doi:10.1016/j.asr.2026.01.045.
• from the NASA Astrophysics Data System • by the DOI System •
@ARTICLE{2026AdSpR..77.7155Z,
author = {{Zhang}, Lei and {Li}, Kai and {Tang}, Chengpan and {Hu}, Xiaogong and {Shu}, Fengchun and {Yang}, Yan},
title = "{Improving orbit accuracy for LEO navigation satellites by considering time-variable gravity fields}",
journal = {Advances in Space Research},
keywords = {Time-variable gravity, Orbit determination, Orbit prediction, LEO navigation satellites},
year = 2026,
month = mar,
volume = {77},
number = {6},
pages = {7155-7167},
abstract = "{Low Earth Orbit (LEO) navigation satellites are capable of enhancing the
Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and providing high-
precision navigation services to users. Consequently, precise
orbit determination (POD) is fundamental to the utility of LEO
navigation satellites. A critical factor limiting the accuracy
of POD is the gravity field. This research selects three LEO
satellites with distinct orbital altitudes-GRACE-C, Sentinel-3B,
and Jason-3, and conducts the orbit determination and prediction
experiments using three different gravity models: EIGEN-GL04C,
COST-G, and GOCO06s. The article mainly utilizes internal
consistency and external comparisons with Precision Science
Orbit (PSO) orbits to evaluate the accuracy of different gravity
models. To validate the optimal performance of the model, the
experiments utilized the CODE final products. The results
indicate that the GOCO06s gravity field model exhibits the best
accuracy in orbit accuracy. Employing GOCO06s for GRACE-C
satellite orbit determination, the User Range Errors (URE) is
1.70 cm, demonstrating 6.45\% and 26.09\% improvements over the
COST-G and EIGEN-GL04C models, respectively. For 60-min orbit
prediction, the URE is 8.59 cm while also outperforming COST-G
(36.47\%) and EIGEN-GL04C (45.43\%). An experiment is designed
to assess the impact of the time variable components on the
orbit accuracy of LEO satellites by extracting the time variable
components of GOCO06s model. The time variable component of the
gravity field reduces the 60-min orbit prediction error (URE:
8.59 cm) for GRACE-C (about 500 km) by nearly 79.39\%, whereas
it decreases the error by 0.30\% for Jason-3 (more than 1300
km). The research emphasizes optimizing gravity models and
exploring their navigation applications to address increasing
precision requirements of satellite services.}",
doi = {10.1016/j.asr.2026.01.045},
adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2026AdSpR..77.7155Z},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
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Fri Apr 10, F. Flechtner