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GP-B Post-Flight Analysis—Final Report - Gravity Probe B - Stanford ...

GP-B Post-Flight Analysis—Final Report - Gravity Probe B - Stanford ...

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Figure 4-5. Pictorial depiction of η. The circle represents the Earth, the vertical line is the orbit plane viewededge-on, and the asterisk represents the guide star. η is the angle between orbit plane and guide star atany point in the orbit plane.4.4.2 Launch RequirementsThe orbit plane parameters that satisfy the requirement above depend on the launch day. That is, they dependon the motions of the orbit plane, which depend on the positions of the sun and moon during the mission.For each potential launch day, an iterative process using semi-analytic integrations of orbit elements for 16months was used to determine initial i and Ω values that satisfy the η-average requirement. It was found thatacceptable i and Ω pairs filled a thin lens-shaped region. The center of the lens was chosen as the inclination andnodal target for each mission start day. (The lens boundaries are different for each start day, but the thinness ofthe lens is nearly constant, and that thinness limited the initial mission mean inclination values to ±0.00020degrees for maximum nodal launch errors). Launch vehicle requirements for each launch day were obtained bypropagating the mission target elements backward to launch time.Figure 4-6 illustrates an example of those computations. It shows the expected evolution of eta and eta-average(the pairs of curves with the same color) after a launch that takes place on 20 April 2004. The x-axis indicatestime in months and includes the nominal 2-month IOC period as well as the 10 - 14 month science period(yielding a total duration of 12 – 16 months). The three cases shown represent the optimum andmaximum/minimum allowable inclination limits, assuming in this case an ideal value of the right ascension ofthe ascending node. The max/min curves represent the worst-case initial inclination errors for which etaaveragewould just remain within the ±0.025° limits for a science mission lasting anywhere from 10 to14 months.112 March 2007 Chapter 4 — <strong>GP</strong>-B On Orbit

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