WILD2 approach maneuver strategy used for Stardust spacecraft
Maneuver design processess, including contingency plans and maneuver performance characteristics are discussed in this paper.
Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Carranza, E..
Maneuver design processess, including contingency plans and maneuver performance characteristics are discussed in this paper.
The NASA Discovery Stardust spacecraft flew by the main belt asteroid 5535 Annefrank at a distance of 3100 km and a speed of 7.4 km/s in November 2002 to test the encounter sequence developed for its primary science target, the comet 81P/Wild2. During this testing, over 70 images of Annefrank were obtained, taken over a phase angle range from 40 to 140 degrees.
The objective of the CONTOUR mission was to conduct scientific fly-by studies of comets, Encke and Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, with the option of changing targets in-flight or visiting anadditional target after the SW3 encounter. The paper will describe the mission's planned trajectory, the navigation challenges, as well as the navigation tasks that were involved in achieving mission objectives.
The successful navigation of the Comet Nucleus Tour spacecraft was performed at JPL and was conducted with the use of the new noncoherent transceiver technique developed by the Applied Physics Laboratory. Discussions include the conditioning performed on the 2-way noncoherent Doppler data, the orbit determination process, and the post SRM trajectory reconstruction.
The NASA Discovery STARDUST spacecraft flew by the main belt asteroid 5535 Annefrank in November 2002 to test the encounter sequence developed for its primary science target, the comet 81P/Wild 2.
This paper describes the navigation strategy and results for the rendezvous and orbit phases of the NEAR mission.
This paper will show the unique features of navigation and mission design related to orbiting an asteroid and to designing a robust navigation system for the NEAR spacecraft.
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A describtion of the Mars Global Surveyor mission and its trajectory will be provided, followed by a discussion of the orbit determination estimation procedure and models.
This paper presents orbit determination work conducted at JPL for the purpose of refining the Mars gravity field as part of the radio science investigation.
This paper describes the navigation strategy and results for the rendezvous and orbit phases of the NEAR mission.
The lunar gravity field is determined from the tracking data of previous missions to the Moon with the 1998-1999 Lunar Prospector (LP) mission being the major contributor.
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NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous Mission began its record-setting exploration of the asteroid 433 Eros by inserting the spacecraft into orbit about Eros on February 14, 2000. This is the first spacecraft from any country to orbit an asteroid. The mission has overcome a failed insertion burn attempt on December 20, 1998, an event that would have ended most planetary missions, to return to the same target and successfully begin its science mapping a little more than a year later. Shortly after the successful insertion into orbit, the mission was renamed NEAR Shoemaker (NEAR) in memory of the late astronomer and geologist Eugene Shoemaker. NEAR will gather science data at Eros until February 14, 2001, which is the nominal end of mission. The NEAR mission is managed by the Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. Since the initial mission concept in 1992, the design and implementation of the NEAR navigation system have been the responsibility of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. This presentation will show some of the unique features of navigation and mission design related to orbiting an asteroid and to designing a robust navigation system for the NEAR spacecraft. The problem of navigating a spacecraft about an asteroid is made difficult by the relative uncertainty in the asteroid physical properties which perturb the orbit: i.e., the mass, gravity field, and spin state. To help solve this problem, the navigation system for NEAR uses traditional DSN radio metric Doppler and range tracking, along with new technologies of optical landmark tracking and laser ranging to the asteroid surface. The experiences to date for each of these data types in the navigation solutions will be presented. Plans for the remainder of the NEAR mission will be presented, which include low orbits (down to 35 km radius circular orbits), and close flybys that may pass within 1 km of the surface. In addition, at the end of mission, NASA has approved a controlled descent and hovering phase that will culminate with the spacecraft impacting the surface. The maneuver planning for this final phase will also be presented.
Orbit determination of the Lunar Prospector spacecraft performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was conducted as part of the lunar gravity experiment.