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Results for “ORBIT PERTURBATION”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 289 records · Page 16
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1974

Lunar satellite techniques applicable to earth satellite geodesy

The techniques considered are related to gravity profiling from Doppler residuals, a solution for a surface mass distribution, and a dynamical approach for the estimation of random forces at each data point. The dynamical approach makes use of a new filtering method which uses sequential estimation theory to determine unknown and somewhat correlated forces which randomly perturb the orbit. It is concluded that lunar data reduction methods would be suitable for applications in connection with the GEOS-C/ATS-F mission.

Sjogren, W. L.↗
NASA NTRS1975

Properties of solid and gaseous hydrogen, based upon anisotropic pair interactions

Properties of H2 are studied on the basis of an analytic anisotropic potential deduced from atomic orbital and perturbation calculations. The low-pressure solid results are based on a spherical average of the anisotropic potential. The ground state energy and the pressure-volume relation are calculated. The metal-insulator phase transition pressure is predicted. Second virial coefficients are calculated for H2 and D2, as is the difference in second virial coefficients between ortho and para H2 and D2.

Etters, R. D.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Time transformations and Cowell's method

The precise numerical integration of Cowell's equations of satellite motion is frequently performed with an independent variable s defined by an equation of the form dt = cr to the n-th power ds, where t represents time, r the radial distance from the center of attraction, c is a constant, and n is a parameter. This has been primarily motivated by the 'uniformizing' effects of such a transformation resulting in desirable 'analytic' stepsize control for elliptical orbits. This report discusses the 'proper' choice of the parameter n defining the independent variable s for various types of orbits and perturbation models, and develops a criterion for its selection.

Velez, C. E.↗
NASA NTRS1983

The variations in eccentricity and apse precession rate of a narrow ring perturbed by a close satellite

The first-order perturbations of orbital eccentricity and apse precession rate for the case of a narrow ring, due to a close satellite whose orbit is also eccentric, are described by means of a Hamiltonian. The present treatment covers cases in which the satellite crosses the ring, and the level curves of the Hamiltonian are displayed for several parameter values. The results obtained are applied to the interaction of Saturn's F ring with its inner shepherd satellite.

Borderies, N.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Modular approach for satellite communication ground terminals

The trend in satellite communications is toward completely digital, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems with uplink and downlink data rates dictated by the type of service offered. Trunking terminals will operate in the 550 MBPS (megabit per second) region uplink and downlink, whereas customer premise service (CPS) terminals will operate in the 25 to 10 MBPS region uplink and in the 200 MBPS region downlink. Additional criteria for the ground terminals will be to maintain clock sychronization with the system and burst time integrity to within a matter of nanoseconds, to process required order-fire information, to provide adaptive data scrambing, and to compensate for variations in the user input output data rates, and for changes in range in the satellite communications links resulting from satellite perturbations in orbit. To achieve the required adaptability of a ground terminal to the above mentioned variables, programmable building blocks can be developed that will meet all of these requirements. To maintain system synchronization, i.e., all bursted data arriving at the satellite within assigned TDMA windows, ground terminal transmit data rates and burst timing must be maintained within tight tolerances. With a programmable synchronizer as the heart of the terminal timing generation, variable data rates and burst timing tolerances are achievable. In essence, the unit inputs microprocessor generated timing words and outputs discrete timing pulses.

Gould, G. R.↗
NASA NTRS1986

A review of tether induced dynamical features

The simplest mathematical model used for the simulation of TSS motion is considered in order to review the dynamics of tethers. This model is discussed. Also reviewed are elasticity effects, perturbation sources, orbit eccentricity and natural frequencies. Tethered systems provide a unique opportunity for skilled measurement activities in space. Some of the experiments envisaged require the measurement of very small mechanical quantities. This implies that the level of dynamical noise on instruments output be low or that system response to excitation, either external or internal, be sufficiently known. In this respect, the first TSS flights will be very useful, but much work will be needed in order to have reliable estimates of structural damping in different future systems.

Bergamaschi, S.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Corotation torques in the solar nebula - The cutoff function

The behavior of high-order corotation resonances in a disk of finite thickness is examined. The torque exerted at an mth-order resonance is determined by employing a vertically averaged disturbing function, and the ratio of this torque to that exerted on a cold, two-dimensional disk is identified as the so-called torque cutoff function. This function is then used to calculate contributions from the corotation torques to eccentricity variations of a perturber's orbit assumed orbiting in the disk.

Ward, William R.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Atmospheric drag perturbations on the Mars Observer Orbiter

The nominal launch date of the Mars Observer spacecraft is 09 - 16 - 02, with Mars encounter on 08 - 19 - 93 and the mapping orbit established on 12 - 06 - 93. Because this orbit is nearly circular at low altitude (361 km), both gravity and atmospheric drag will dominate the orbital evolution and are also the major error sources. This paper provides: (1) a summary of atmospheric density and errors for the Mars Observer orbit and time frame, (2) an assessment of spacecraft-position errors using current density estimates, and (3) an estimate of atmospheric density modeling improvement directly from the Doppler data acquired during flight operations. With an improved gravity field model, reconstructed spacecraft-position errors are at the level of 0.5 km (1sigma). However, when predicting the spacecraft's position over 14 days, the density error (at the 90-percent confidence level) dominates, yielding a down-track error of almost 70 km. By modeling the mean atmospheric density, this error can be reduced by at least a factor of two.

Esposito, P. B.↗
NASA NTRS2003

James Webb Space Telescope Station-keeping

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is planned to be launched in 2011 to the Sun- Earth L2 libration point. The resultant delta-Vs (dV) from momentum unloads will perturb the orbit and necessitate frequent station-keeping maneuvers. The station-keeping dV budget is highly sensitive to the direction of the resultant dV vector. A simple spacecraft reorientation prior to each momentum unload will allow some control over the direction of the resultant dV vector. For each inertial momentum vector direction, an optimum spacecraft attitude is determined which gives a resultant dV vector that requires the least amount of station-keeping dV. Using this procedure, the station-keeping dV budget for JWST can be reduced by 60%.

Beckman, Mark↗
NASA NTRS2004

Supermassive Black Holes and Galaxy Evolution

Supermassive black holes appear to be generic components of galactic nuclei. The formation and growth of black holes is intimately connected with the evolution of galaxies on a wide range of scales. For instance, mergers between galaxies containing nuclear black holes would produce supermassive binaries which eventually coalesce via the emission of gravitational radiation. The formation and decay of these binaries is expected to produce a number of observable signatures in the stellar distribution. Black holes can also affect the large-scale structure of galaxies by perturbing the orbits of stars that pass through the nucleus. Large-scale N-body simulations are beginning to generate testable predictions about these processes which will allow us to draw inferences about the formation history of supermassive black holes.

Merritt, D.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Comet Dust: The Story of Planet Formation as Told by the Tiniest of Particles

Our planetary system formed out of a gas-rich disk-shaped nebula with the early Sun at its center. Many small icy bodies were consumed by the formation of the giant planets. However, many km-size icy bodies were tossed out of the giant-planet region to the cold, distant reaches of our solar system. Comets remained in their places of cold storage until perturbed into orbits that carry them into the inner solar system where they pass relatively close to the Sun. Comets are warmed by the Sun and shed material from their outer layers. The ices and gases shed by comets reveal simple and complex organic molecules were present at the time and in the region of the formation of the giant planets. Where the Earth was forming was too hot and had too intense sunlight for many of these ices and molecules to survive. The dust shed by comets tells us that some stardust survived unaltered but much of the dust was heated and crystallized before becoming part of the comet. Therefore, comet dust grains tell of large radial migrations from the cold outer reaches near Neptune into the hot regions near the forming Sun, and then back out to the cold regions where icy comets were accreting and forming. On 2005 July 4, the NASA Deep Impact Mission hit a comet and ejected primitive materials fiom its interior. These materials were not released into the comet s coma during normal activity. Despite the many passages of this comet close to the Sun, these primitive volatile gases and dust grains survived in its interior. Comet dust grains show that cold and hot materials were mixed into the same tiny particle very early in the formation of the solar system, and these aggregate dust grains never saw high temperatures again. The survival of primitive materials in comet nuclei suggests comets could have delivered organic molecules and primitive dust grains to early Earth.

Wooden, D. H.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Optical Observations of Space Debris

This viewgraph presentation reviews the use of optical telescopes to observe space debris. .It will present a brief review of how the survey is conducted, and what some of the significant results encompass. The goal is to characterize the population of debris objects at GEO, with emphasis on the faint object population. Because the survey observations extend over a very short arc (5 minutes), a full six parameter orbit can not be determined. Recently we have begun to use a second telescope, the 0.9-m at CTIO, as a chase telescope to do follow-up observations of potential GEO debris candidates found by MODEST. With a long enough sequence of observations, a full six-parameter orbit including eccentricity can be determined. The project has used STK since inception for planning observing sessions based on the distribution of bright cataloged objects and the anti-solar point (to avoid eclipse). Recently, AGI's Orbit Determination Tool Kit (ODTK) has been used to determine orbits, including the effects of solar radiation pressure. Since an unknown fraction of the faint debris at GEO has a high area-to-mass ratio (A/M), the orbits are perturbed significantly by solar radiation. The ODTK analysis results indicate that temporal variations in the solar perturbations, possibly due to debris orientation dynamics, can be estimated in the OD process. Additionally, the best results appear to be achieved when solar forces orthogonal to the object-Sun line are considered. Determining the A/M of individual objects and the distribution of A/M values of a large sample of debris is important to understanding the total population of debris at GEO

Seitzer, Patrick↗
NASA NTRS2013

Dynamics of Orbits near 3:1 Resonance in the Earth-Moon System

The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft is currently in a highly elliptical orbit around Earth with a period near 3:1 resonance with the Moon. Its orbit is oriented so that apogee does not approach the Moon. Simulations show this orbit to be remarkably stable over the next twenty years. This article examines the dynamics of such orbits in the Circular Restricted 3-Body Problem (CR3BP). We look at three types of periodic orbits, each exhibiting a type of symmetry of the CR3BP. For each of the orbit types, we assess the local stability using Floquet analysis. Although not all of the periodic solutions are stable in the mathematical sense, any divergence is so slow as to produce practical stability over several decades. We use Poincare maps with twenty-year propagations to assess the nonlinear stability of the orbits, where the perturbation magnitudes are related to the orbit uncertainty for the IBEX mission. Finally we show that these orbits belong to a family of orbits connected in a bifurcation diagram that exhibits exchange of stability. The analysis of these families of period orbits provides a valuable starting point for a mission orbit trade study.

Dichmann, Donald J.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Update: Antarctic Winterover as an Analog for Spaceflight Immune Dysregulation

Orbital spaceflight perturbs the human immune system significantly; Natural Killer (NK) and T-lymphocyte (T) cell functions are most susceptible to spaceflight-induced impairment. This loss of function may manifest in persistent latent virus reactivation (CMV, EBV, VZV), which does occur at a higher frequency in astronauts compared to earthlings.

Makedonas, George↗
NASA NTRS1996

MISR Band-to-Band Registration

During the standard geo-rectification processing of the MISR imagery, all four spectral bands belonging to each of the nine MISR cameras are required to be geolocated and co-registered automatically with about one pixel accuracy. Two steps of processing are designed to accomplish this goal: 1)a complex multi-camera geolocation and co-registration of the red spectral band data for all nine cameras, and 2) the co-registration of the other three spectral bands of MISR imagery of each camera using their relationship with the already geolocated red band imagery. This paper addresses the second processing.

geolocationco-registration↗
NASA NTRS1994

Dynamics of massive black holes as a possible candidate of Galactic dark matter

If the dark halo of the Galaxy is comprised of massive black holes (MBHs), then those within approximately 1 kpc will spiral to the center, where they will interact with one another, forming binaries which contract, owing to further dynamical friction, and then possibly merge to become more massive objects by emission of gravitational radiation. If successive mergers would invariably lead, as has been proposed by various authors, to the formation of a very massive nucleus of 10(exp 8) solar mass, then the idea of MBHs as a dark matter candidate could be excluded on observational grounds, since the observed limit (or value) for a Galactic central black hole is approximately 10(exp 6.5) solar mass. But, if successive mergers are delayed or prevented by other processes, such as the gravitational slingshot or rocket effect of gravitational radiation, then a large mass accumulation will not occur. In order to resolve this issue, we perform detailed N-body simulations using a modfied Aarseth code to explore the dynamical behavior of the MBHs, and we find that for a 'best estimate' model of the Galaxy a runaway does not occur. The code treates the MBHs as subject to the primary gravitational forces of one another and to the smooth stellar distribution, as well as the secondary perturbations in their orbits due to another and to the smooth stellar distribution, as well as the secondary perturbations in their orbits due to dynamical friction and gravitational radiation. Instead of a runaway, three-body interactions between hard binaries and single MBHs eject massive objects before accumulation of more than a few units, so that typically the center will contain zero, one, or two MBHs. We study how the situation depends in detail on the mass per MBH, the rotation of the halo, the mass distribution within the Galaxy, and other parameters. A runaway will most sensitively depend on the ratio of initial (spheroid/halo) central mass densities and secondarily on the typical values for the mass per MBH, with the rough dividing line, using Galactic parameters, being M(sub BH) less than or = 10(exp 6.5) solar mass. Using parameters from Lacey & Ostriker (1985) and our most accurate model for Galaxy, no runaway occurs.

Xu, Guohong↗