PASSIVE GEOSTATIONARY SATELLITE POSITION DETERMINATION

摘要

Systems and methods for accurately determining the position of a satellite such as, for example, a geostationary satellite. In one embodiment, a satellite position determination system (10) includes an uplink station (20), a transceiver (50) onboard the satellite (12), a plurality of receiver stations (30A-30D), and a master station (40). A time stamped message included in an uplink signal (80) is transmitted from the uplink station (20), received by the transceiver (50), and rebroadcast without modification in a ubiquitous regional broadcast signal (90) from the transceiver (50). The message is received by the receiver stations (30A-30D) from the signal (90) and is retransmitted from each receiver station (30A-30D) via dedicated communication links (70A-70D) to the master station (40). The master station (40) determines the three-dimensional position of the satellite based on time differentials of arrival in the retransmitted rebroadcast messages.