Prospects for applications of VLEO occultation in ionosphere detection

Ionospheric occultation detection, a space-based ionospheric exploration technique, involves the penetration of ionosphere by navigation signals from GNSS satellites during occultation events, which are eventually received by occultation detection satellites. By processing these signals, ionospheric parameters along the ray path can be inverted. Currently, there are significant gaps in the layout of China’s global ground-based ionospheric observation network, and ionospheric observations over the ocean are equally challenging. Ionospheric occultation detection, with its advantages of high precision, high vertical resolution, high coverage, all-weather operation, and low cost, can provide rich data support for global ionospheric observations, thus necessitating more comprehensive research on occultation detection. With the development of occultation detection technology and the commercialization of Very low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, occultation detection constellations are gradually moving towards VLEO. This paper studies the relationship between the configuration of VLEO occultation detection constellations and their detection capabilities. Through deep learning, a better configuration for VLEO occultation detection constellations is proposed. By comparing this configuration with occultation detection constellations at different orbit heights, such as COSMIC and Tianmu, the feasibility of VLEO occultation detection constellations is demonstrated. The experimental conclusions will provide theoretical support for the future pan-deployment of occultation detection payloads on VLEO satellites.