The Earth is not perfectly spherical and its rotational axis is not fixed in space, and these geophysical and kinematic irregularities work as dominant perturbations in satellite orbit propagation. The International Earth Rotation Service (IERS) provides the Conventions as guidelines for using the Earth’s model and the reference time and coordinate systems defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). These guidelines are directly applied to model orbital dynamics of Earth satellites. In the present work, the effects of the latest conventions released in 2010 on orbit propagation are investigated by comparison with cases of applying the previous guidelines, IERS Conventions (2003). All seven major updates are tested, i.e., for the models of the precession/nutation, the geopotential, the ocean tides, the ocean pole tides, the free core nutation, the polar motion, and the solar system ephemeris. The resultant position differences for one week of orbit propagation range from tens of meters for the geopotential model change from EGM96 to EGM2008 to a few mm for the precession/nutation model change from IAU2000 to IAU2006. The along-track differences vary secularly while the cross-track components show periodic variation. However, the radial-track position differences are very small compared with the other components in all cases. These phenomena reflect the variation of the ascending node and the argument of latitude. The reason is that the changed models tested in the current study can be regarded as small fluctuations of the geopotential model from the point of view of orbital dynamics. The ascending node and the argument of latitude are more sensitive to the geopotential than the other elements. This study contributes to understanding of the relation between the Earth’s geophysical properties and orbital motion of satellites as well as satellite-based observations.

Ionosphere is one of the largest error sources when the navigational signals produced by Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites are transmitted. Therefore it is very important to estimate total electron contents (TEC) in ionosphere precisely for navigation, precise positioning and some other applications. When we provide ionospheric TEC values in real-time, its application can be expanded to other areas. In this study we have used data obtained from nine Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) reference stations which have been operated by Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) to detect ionospheric TEC over South Korea in real-time. We performed data processing that covers converting 1Hz raw data delivered from GNSS reference stations to Receiver INdependent Exchange (RINEX) format files at intervals of 5 minutes. We also analyzed the elevation angles of GPS satellites, vertical TEC (VTEC) values and their changes.

ARGO-M is a satellite laser ranging (SLR) system developed by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute with the consideration of mobility and daytime and nighttime satellite observation. The ARGO-M optical system consists of 40 cm receiving telescope, 10 cm transmitting telescope, and detecting optics. For the development of ARGO-M optical system, the structural analysis was performed with regard to the optics and optomechanics design and the optical components. To ensure the optical performance, the quality was tested at the level of parts using the laser interferometer and ultra-high-precision measuring instruments. The assembly and alignment of ARGO-M optical system were conducted at an auto-collimation facility. As the transmission and reception are separated in the ARGO-M optical system, the pointing alignment between the transmitting telescope and receiving telescope is critical for precise target pointing. Thus, the alignment using the ground target and the radiant point observation of transmitting laser beam was carried out, and the lines of sight for the two telescopes were aligned within the required pointing precision. This paper describes the design, structural analysis, manufacture and assembly of parts, and entire process related with the alignment for the ARGO-M optical system.

Kinematic global positioning system precise point positioning (GPS PPP) technology is widely used to the several area such as monitoring of crustal movement and precise orbit determination (POD) using the dual-frequency GPS observations. In this study we developed a kinematic PPP technology and applied 3-pass (forward/backward/forward) filter for the stabilization of the initial state of the parameters to be estimated. For verification of results, we obtained GPS data sets from six international GPS reference stations (ALGO, AMC2, BJFS, GRAZ, IENG and TSKB) and processed in daily basis by using the developed software. As a result, the mean position errors by kinematic PPP showed 0.51 cm in the east-west direction, 0.31 cm in the north-south direction and 1.02 cm in the up-down direction. The root mean square values produced from them were 1.59 cm for the east-west component, 1.26 cm for the south-west component and 2.95 cm for the up-down component.