Y. Andres

The EUMETSAT Environment for Precise Orbit Determination

In the frame of the processing of data from the GNSS Receiver for Atmospheric Sounding (GRAS) instrument onboard the MetOp satellites, EUMETSAT has developed an environment for operational Precise Orbit Determination (POD) processing and validation. The design of this POD environment, in which several components for validation, monitoring, reprocessing and calibration are centralized, makes it well-suited for its usage in future EUMETSAT missions involving POD, such as Sentinel-3, part of Europe’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES). The purpose of this paper is to describe this environment, consisting of two different platforms (operational and offline) using GRAS processing as an example of its capabilities. The Navigation Package for Earth Observation Satellites (NAPEOS) infrastructure from ESA is used as the core POD software.