The plasmasphere is located above the ionosphere with low-energy plasma, which is an important component of the solar-terrestrial space environment. As the link between the ionosphere and the magnetosphere, the plasmasphere plays an important role in the coupling process. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the electron content variation of the plasmasphere for the solar-terrestrial space environment. Nowadays, the topside global positioning system (GPS) observations on Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites provide a unique opportunity to estimate and study variations in the plasmasphere. In this paper, the plasmaspheric total electron content (PTEC) is estimated, and its long-term variations are studied from topside GPS observations onboard the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC). The PTEC in the daytime is higher than that in the nighttime, with the peak between 14:00 and 17:00 in the magnetic local time, while the minimum value of PTEC in the belt appears between 3:00 and 6:00 in the magnetic local time before sunrise. For seasonal variations, the PTEC is the highest in spring of the northern hemisphere and the lowest in summer of the northern hemisphere regardless of the state of the solar activity. The long-term variation in PTEC is further analyzed using 11-year COSMIC GPS observation data from 2007 to 2017. A high correlation between PTEC and the F10.7 indices is found. Particularly in the geomagnetic high-latitude region during the daytime, the correlation coefficient reaches 0.93. The worst case occurs during the nighttime in the geomagnetic middle-latitude region, but the correlation coefficient is still higher than 0.88. The long-term variations of plasmaspheric TEC are mainly related to the solar activity.

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites can be used for remote sensing and gravity field recovery, while precise orbit determination (POD) is vital for LEO satellite applications. However, there are some systematic errors when using the LEO satellite orbits released by different agencies in multi-satellite-based applications, e.g., Swarm and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment-Follow-On (GRACE-FO), as different GNSS precise orbit and clock products are used as well as processing strategies and software. In this paper, we performed undifferenced kinematic PODs for Swarm and GRACE-FO satellites simultaneously over a total of 14 days by using consistent International Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Service (IGS) precise orbit and clock products. The processing strategy based on an undifferenced ionosphere-free combination and a least squares method was applied for Swarm and GRACE-FO satellites. Furthermore, the quality control for the kinematic orbits was adopted to mitigate abrupt position offsets. Moreover, the accuracy of the kinematic orbits solution was evaluated by carrier phase residual analysis and Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) observations, as well as comparison with official orbits. The results show that the kinematic orbits solution is better than 4 cm, according to the SLR validation. With quality control, the accuracy of the kinematic orbit solution is improved by 2.49 % for the Swarm-C satellite and 6.98 % for the GRACE-D satellite when compared with their precise orbits. By analyzing the accuracy of the undifferenced kinematic orbit solution, the reliability of the LEO orbit determination is presented in terms of processing strategies and quality control procedures.

Real-Time Precise Orbit Determination (RTPOD) of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites relies primarily on onboard GNSS observations and may suffer from degraded performance when observation geometry weakens or tracking conditions deteriorate within satellite formations. To enhance the robustness and accuracy of RTPOD under such conditions, a cooperative Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) framework that fuses onboard GNSS and inter-satellite link (ISL) range measurements is established, integrated with an iterative Detection, Identification, and Adaptation (DIA) quality control algorithm. By introducing high-precision ISL range measurements, the strategy increases observation redundancy, improves the effective observation geometry, and provides strong relative position constraints among LEO satellites. This constraint strengthens solution stability and convergence, while simultaneously enhancing the sensitivity of the DIA-based quality control to observation outliers. The proposed strategy is validated in a simulated real-time environment using Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) real-time products and onboard observations of the GRACE-FO mission. The results demonstrate comprehensive performance enhancements for both satellites over the experimental period. For the GRACE-D satellite, which suffers from about 17% data loss and a cycle slip ratio several times higher than that of GRACE-C, the mean orbit accuracy improves by 39% (from 13.1 cm to 8.0 cm), and the average convergence time is shortened by 44.3%. In comparison, the GRACE-C satellite achieves a 4.2% mean accuracy refinement and a 1.3% reduction in convergence time. These findings reveal a cooperative stabilization mechanism, where the high-precision spatiotemporal reference is transferred from the robust node to the degraded node via inter-satellite range measurements. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method in enhancing the robustness and stability of formation orbit determination and provides algorithmic validation for future RTPOD of LEO satellite formations or large-scale constellations.

Real-time data processing onboard is increasingly essential for future Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. We propose an ultra-rapid onboard orbit determination (OD) strategy that achieves decimeter-level accuracy, potentially up to centimeter-level. This approach enables high-precision OD and prediction using either precise GNSS products from ground stations or broadcast ephemeris. Consequently, it allows satellite payloads to deliver real-time, high-performance services to ground users, with significant potential for various applications. Experimental results show that using IGS final GNSS products, this method achieves 5 cm accuracy for OD and better than 10 cm for 10-min orbit prediction. With broadcast ephemeris, the accuracies are better than 45 cm for OD and 1 m for 10-min orbit prediction.