meetings - Space Flight Mechanics Committee

Feb 12, 2013 Kauai Salon 1
SESSION 9: ORBIT DETERMINATION AND ESTIMATION THEORY -- II
Chair: Dr. Stefano Casotto, Università degli Studi di Padova
8:00 AAS Mars Science Laboratory Orbit Determination Data Pre-Processing
13-231 Eric Gustafson, NASA / Caltech JPL; Gerhard Kruizinga, NASA / Caltech JPL;
Tomas Martin-Mur, NASA / Caltech JPL
The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) was spin-stabilized during its cruise to Mars. We
discuss the effects of spin on the radiometric data and how the orbit determination team
dealt with them. Additionally, we will discuss the unplanned benefits of detailed spin
modeling including attitude estimation and spacecraft clock correlation.
8:20 AAS Filter Strategies for Mars Science Laboratory Orbit Determination
13-233 Paul Thompson, NASA / Caltech JPL; Eric Gustafson, NASA / Caltech JPL;
Gerhard Kruizinga, NASA / Caltech JPL; Tomas Martin-Mur, NASA / Caltech JPL
The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft had ambitious navigation delivery accuracy
requirements for landing inside Gale Crater. Confidence in the orbit determination (OD)
solutions was increased by investigating numerous filter strategies for solving the orbit
determination problem. We will discuss the types of variations used: for example, data
types, data weights, solar pressure model covariance, and estimating versus considering
model parameters. This process generated a set of plausible OD solutions that were
compared to the baseline OD strategy. Even implausible or unrealistic results were helpful
in isolating sensitivities in the OD solutions to certain model parameters or data types.
8:40 AAS Measurement uncertainty in satellite direction finding with an interferometer
13-276 Liam Healy, Naval Research Laboratory; Christopher Binz, Naval Research
Laboratory
Interferometry produces measurements with inherent ambiguity in the form of a multimodal
probability distribution function. Typically, this ambiguity is resolved by superimposing the
results of multiple interferometer pairs, as in the Air Force Space Surveillance Fence. This
complexity in hardware could conceivably be transferred to the processing step, if
ambiguity resolution can be done algorithmically with a single interferometer pair. This
work investigates the possibility of modeling the error of a single interferometer pair using
a mixture of Gaussian distributions. Results are presented for interferometric estimation
using the Kalman filter with linear system dynamics.
9:00 AAS Range-only IOD
13-277 James Wright, Analytical Graphics, Inc.
This new two-body IOD algorithm uses only range measurements on a uniform time grid.
Range-rate estimates are derived from range: A Lagrange interpolator is used to calculate
23 rd AAS / AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meeting Page 41