With the development of the global navigation satellite system(GNSS), the hourly ultra-rapid products of GNSS are attracting more attention due to their low latency and high accuracy. A new strategy and method was applied by the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO) Analysis Center (AC) of the international GNSS Monitoring and Assessment Service (iGMAS) for generating 6-hourly and 1-hourly GNSS products, which mainly include the American Global Positioning System (GPS), the Russian Global’naya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikova Sistema (GLONASS), the European Union’s Galileo, and the Chinese BeiDou navigation satellite system (BDS). The 6-hourly and 1-hourly GNSS orbit and clock ultra-rapid products included a 24-h observation session which is determined by 24-h observation data from global tracking stations, and a 24-h prediction session which is predicted from the observation session. The accuracy of the 1-hourly orbit product improved about 1%, 31%, 13%, 11%, 23%, and 9% for the observation session and 18%, 43%, 45%, 34%, 53%, and 15% for the prediction session of GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BDS Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), Inclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO), and GEO orbit, when compared with reference products with high accuracy from the International GNSS service (IGS).The precision of the 1-hourly clock products can also be seen better than the 6-hourly clock products. The accuracy and precision of the 6-hourly and 1-hourly orbit and clock verify the availability and reliability of the hourly ultra-rapid products, which can be used for real-time or near-real-time applications, and show encouraging prospects.

BeiDou global navigation satellite system (BDS) began to provide positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services to global users officially on 31 July, 2020. BDS constellations consist of regional (BDS-2) and global navigation satellites (BDS-3). Due to the difference of modulations and characteristics for the BDS-2 and BDS-3 default civil service signals (B1I/B3I) and the increase of new signals (B1C/B2a) for BDS-3, a systemically bias exists in the receiver-end when receiving and processing BDS-2 and BDS-3 signals, which leads to the inter-system bias (ISB) between BDS-2 and BDS-3 on the receiver side. To fully utilize BDS, the BDS-2 and BDS-3 combined precise time and frequency transfer are investigated considering the effect of the ISB. Four kinds of ISB stochastic models are presented, which are ignoring ISB (ISB_NO), estimating ISB as random constant (ISB_CV), random walk process (ISB_RW), and white noise process (ISB_WN). The results demonstrate that the datum of receiver clock offsets can be unified and the ISB deduced datum confusion can be avoided by estimating the ISB. The ISB_CV and ISB_RW models are superior to ISB_WN. For the BDS-2 and BDS-3 combined precise time and frequency transfer using ISB_NO, ISB_CV, ISB_RW, and ISB_WN, the stability of clock differences of old signals can be enhanced by 20.18%, 23.89%, 23.96%, and 11.46% over BDS-2-only, respectively. For new signals, the enhancements are −50.77%, 20.22%, 17.53%, and −3.69%, respectively. Moreover, ISB_CV and ISB_RW models have the better frequency transfer stability. Consequently, we recommended the optimal ISB_CV or suboptimal ISB_RW model for BDS-2 and BDS-3 combined precise time and frequency transfer when processing the old as well as the new signals.

The tropospheric delay is an important error source for the satellite navigation and positioning, and the numerical forecast data derived from meteorological instruments can be used to calculate the tropospheric delay. In this study, the zenith tropospheric delay (ZTD) observed from 49 Global Positioning System (GPS) sites distributed in Asia was applied to assess the availability and accuracy for ZTD calculated from the European Center for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the United States National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). The practicability of ECMWF/NCEP data in Asia and the relation between the resolution and the accuracy for ECMWF were also studied. The results show that relative to GPS observed ZTD (GPS ZTD), the bias and rms for the ECMWF data are –1.0 cm and 2.7 cm, respectively, which are better than that for the NCEP data and can be used for ZTD study and application with high accuracy. The bias and rms for the NCEP forecast data are 2.4 cm and 6.8 cm, which are sufficed for the tropospheric delay correction in the real‐time GNSS navigation and positioning. The bias and rms exhibit a seasonal variation, which are generally of larger values in summer months and smaller values in winter months; however, the relation between the bias and rms and the latitude is not obvious, but the rms is decreasing while the altitude increasing. In addition, the daily bias and rms in eastern Asia in summer and in southern Asia in winter have a relatively larger variation. The resolutions of 2.5 degree and 0.5 degree for the ECMWF data are compared; the rms for the latter is decreased by 1~5 mm than the former. These results provide a reference for the availability and accuracy of the ECMWF/NCEP data used for calculating the tropospheric delay in the space geodesy, InSAR, navigation and positioning.