A strategy to determine GRACE-FO kinematic orbit during the activation of flex power 

 Guanlong Meng · Haibo Ge · Tianhao Wu · Bofeng Li

Abstract

 GPS flex power can improve anti-jamming capability by enhancing the transmitting power of individual signals. However, during the active periods of GPS flex power in 2020, it was found that the accuracy of kinematic orbit for GRACE-FO satellites is decreased. In this paper, the impact of flex power on kinematic orbit determination of GRACE-FO is inves tigated. With the analysis of 30-day epoch-differenced geometry-free combinations of phase, i.e., ∆Φ and signal-to noise ratio (SNR) for GRACE-FO satellites, a new strategy which considers the impact of flex power on the continuity of ambiguity is put forward to improve the kinematic orbit of GRACE-FO. After considering flex power, the 3D root mean-square (RMS) of GRACE-C and GRACE-D are reduced to 4.10 and 4.42 cm, with improvements of 36% and 21%, respectively. The improvements of SLR validation are 34% and 14% for GRACE-C and GRACE-D. The above results prove the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.