RATIONALE FOR THE CREATION OF THIS SITE

Research at the Geodetic Research Laboratory has recently focused on the use of GPS receivers in space. This application is relatively new and literature is dispersed among many fields. The World Wide Web has been deemed an appropriate medium to attempt to present the developments in this field.

INTRODUCTION TO SITE

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is becoming the pre-eminent technology used for terrestrial positioning and navigation applications. Since the early 1980's, GPS receivers have begun finding utility in space as well. The development of this application of GPS began slowly, but the number of space missions utilising GPS receivers has steadily increased. Also, at present a number of groups have developed or are developing so-called spaceborne GPS (SGPS) receivers for such applications. The impetus for this growth lies in the fact that GPS can provide accurate, reliable, cost-effective data required for spacecraft operation. The GPS-derived measures of spacecraft position, orbit determination, relative position, attitude, and clock synchronisation can be gained in real-time.

Listed to the right are descriptions of the main aspects of spaceborne GPS, along with associated hyperlinks. Also included are information about SGPS receiver and links to other SGPS information.

Due to the rapid developments in the field of spaceborne GPS and the aerospace industry in general, any comments, information or corrections pertaining to information on this site are welcome and encouraged.