Genesis is an ESA Navigation mission and it will be the first-ever satellite that foresees inclusion of all four space-based geodetic techniques on-board, namely Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR), Very Large Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) and Doppler Orbitography and Radio-positioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS).
The objective of the mission is to contribute to an updated global Earth model, the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF), with an accuracy of 1 mm and a long-term stability of 0.1 mm/year, providing a coordinate system for the most rigorous navigation applications on our planet.
Onboard the Genesis satellite, SpacePNT’s NaviLEOTM spaceborne GNSS receiver technology has been selected for the critical satellite navigation ranging instrument. While NaviLEO already has LEO flight heritage, for GENESIS it will be adapted to operate in medium earth orbit (at 6000 km) with a dual-antenna configuration allowing the reception of the GNSS satellite constellations from a zenith-looking and a nadir-looking antenna.
Photo credit: ESA