Development of a differential GPS tracking system for sounding rocket payloads

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis was to develop a system that could track a sounding rocket payload with a commercial GPS receiver. A GPS receiver was chosen that still outputs raw data when the COCOM limits are exceeded. All the hardware to support the OEM GPS receiver in a reverse differential system was designed and built, including both a ground system and two flight systems to support both on-board storage and telemetry. A software program was developed to archive and compute positions from the raw data. The GPS system has been ground tested and flown on an Orion sounding rocket. The testing shows that the system works and the expected accuracy is 10-50 ft. depending on the distance between the ground station and the rocket, satellite geometry and other sources of error.