Engineering topics

Doyle T Hall

Publications and source records attributed to Doyle T Hall.

4 records

NASA NTRS2024

Appendix N. Pc Calculation Approaches – UPDATE 3/20/24

This document represents a technical content update to Appendix N of the NASA Spacecraft Conjunction Assessment and Collision Avoidance Best Practices Handbook (OCE-51, available on NODIS) requested by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Standards (CCSDS) to document the background on why NASA populates certain fields of the Conjunction Data Message (CDM) in certain ways. This update was requested to be used as reference material for the CCSDS CDM documentation update and so is being published as a white paper out of cycle from Handbook updates. When the full Handbook is next updated, these Appendix redlines may be incorporated into the official document. Two versions are attached - the redlines to the published Handbook for use in understanding what has changed and a clean copy.

conjunction assessment↗

NASA NTRS2021

Expected Collision Rates for Tracked Satellites

This analysis estimates collision risks between tracked satellites based on the statistically expected collision rate _Nc and number of collisions Nc, which are closely related to the collision probability Pc. For isolated encounters, Nc equals Pc. For multi-encounter interactions, Nc can exceed Pc and is significantly easier to approximate semi-analytically. Estimating Nc requires integrating the collision rate over time throughout an interaction, with each required _Nc value calculated as a statistical expectation value based on the uncertainty distributions of initial orbital states. The uncertainty distributions are estimated from orbit determination analyses of satellite trajectory measurements. The formulation accounts for the nonlinear orbital motion of the satellites, and derives Nc and _Nc expressions for Monte Carlo simulations as well as semi-analytical approximations for single- and multi-encounter interactions.

Collision Rates↗

NASA NTRS2018

Effect of Cross-Correlation of Orbital Error on Probability of Collision Determination

This paper discusses the effect of global model error on probability of collision (Pc) determination. Modifications to the Pc formulation for cross-correlation of orbital error in prediction are developed and assessed for recent conjunctions. While specific geometries can be identified or constructed to produce significant change in Pc for the modified formulation, it is of operational interest to quantify the relative occurrence of such cases for satellite conjunction risk assessment. Such analysis is feasible per data collections in place over the past year.

Cross-correlation↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Determining Appropriate Risk Remediation Thresholds from Empirical Conjunction Data Using Survival Probability Methods

Satellites sometimes maneuver before conjunctions to remediate the risk of an on-orbit collision. Many missions use probability of collision (P_c) thresholds to decide when such maneuvers should be performed. These thresholds tend to be conservative because of policies that require satellites survive their lifetimes without collision with high confidence (e.g., 99.9%). This study presents a semi-empirical method to estimate remediation P_c thresholds that satisfy such lifetime risk requirements. The formulation combines survival probability analysis with empirical conjunction histories to estimate remediation thresholds as a function of satellite size, remaining on-orbit duration, lifetime collision probability limit, collision consequence, and other parameters.

Risk Remediation↗