CGSIC Bulletin: GPS-III Satellite Antenna Patterns for SVN-74 through SVN-78

 
All CGSIC,

The U.S. government’s GPS program has released key technical data for the first five GPS III satellite vehicles, SVN-74 through SVN-78, adding antenna gain patterns to previously released antenna phase center, group delay, and inter-signal correction measurements. 

This type of data is critical to support high-accuracy applications and use within the Space Service Volume, including new lunar applications of GNSS.  Spacecraft mission developers and navigation and timing specialists, intending to use GPS in regions of space from 3000 km above the Earth’s surface to the moon, can employ this data to more accurately predict the expected navigation and timing performance of their vehicles.  Earth science missions, such as the GOES weather satellites located in geostationary orbit, leverage these highly accurate antenna gain patterns to build systems that improve Earth weather prediction and accurately geolocate flash floods and wildfires in the Western Hemisphere.

Additionally, the GPS user timing community will benefit from this new data with uniformly distributed power profiles--- for reducing noise with common-view time transfers, mitigating multipath, and being more resilient to adjacent band interference.

This data has been posted to the GPS Technical References pages of the U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Center:

GPS Technical References | Navigation Center (uscg.gov)

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Rick Hamilton
CGSIC Executive Secretariat
GPS Information Analysis Team Lead
U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Center
703-313-5930