Advanced timing and time transfer for satellite constellations using crosslink ranging and an accurate time source

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8989652-B2
Application number	US-201213418200-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 12, 2012
Priority date	Sep 9, 2011
Publication date	Mar 24, 2015
Grant date	Mar 24, 2015

Abstract

A system, method, and apparatus for advanced timing and time transfer for satellite constellations using crosslink ranging and an accurate time source are disclosed herein. In particular, the present disclosure relates generally to systems for providing improved positioning, navigation, and/or timing information for oscillator calibration and more specifically, to use at least one satellite with accessibility to an accurate time source to calibrate the local oscillator on a crosslink paired satellite. In at least, one embodiment, time synchronization on a subset of satellites with crosslinking capabilities is used to distribute time through a network of crosslinked satellites.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method for timing for a satellite constellation, the method comprising:
transmitting, by at least one first satellite, at least one crosslink ranging signal to at least one second satellite, wherein at least one of the at least one first satellite and the at least one second satellite is a timing satellite with a synchronization time;
receiving, by the at least one second satellite, the at least one crosslink ranging signal;
calculating at least one ranging meas…

Assignees

• Whelan David A
• Gutt Gregory M
• Fyfe Peter M
• Boeing Co

Inventors

• Whelan David A
• Gutt Gregory M
• Fyfe Peter M

Classifications

• G01S13/76

  Physics · mapped topic

• H04B7/18521 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• G01S13/765

  Physics · mapped topic

• G01S19/11

  Physics · mapped topic

• H04B7/19

  Electricity · mapped topic