Expanding and Testing Orbit Propagation Capabilities Using CCMC-Hosted Models

The path from state-of-the-art thermospheric modeling to implementation in orbital operations is difficult to navigate and has historically been available to only a few models. As a result, there is a need for a proving ground for thermospheric models and a validation environment that can assess model strengths and weaknesses on an even playing field. A collaboration between CCMC, SWxTREC at CU Boulder, and the GEODYN developers at NASA GSFC has enabled run capabilities for the GEODYN II Orbit Determination Software on the CCMCs AWS environment. This version of GEODYN has the capability to utilize MSIS 2.0, as well as output from CCMC-hosted, physics-based ionosphere-thermosphere models such as TIEGCM and GITM. We show initial results toward validation of these models using the Starlette and ICESat-2 satellites. These capabilities set the stage for use of CCMC-hosted neutral density models, both physics-based and empirical, in geodynamics missions, as well as in planning future heliophysics missions to LEO.