Engineering topics

Long, Stacia M.

Publications and source records attributed to Long, Stacia M..

4 records

NASA NTRS2008

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Aerobraking Navigation Operation

After a seven-month interplanetary cruise, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrived at Mars and executed a 1.0 km/s Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) maneuver. The post-MOI orbit was highly elliptical with a 35 hour, 428 km x 45000 km altitude orbit. To establish a useful science orbit, the navigation team used an aerobraking technique to guide the spacecraft into a 2-hour, 255 km x 320 km altitude orbit. This paper details the aerobraking navigation operation strategy and flight results. It also describes the aerobraking key requirements and navigation challenges.

Long, Stacia M.↗

NASA NTRS2007

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Aerobraking Daily Operations and Collision Avoidance

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reached Mars on March 10, 2006 and performed a Mars orbit insertion maneuver of 1 km/s to enter into a large elliptical orbit. Three weeks later, aerobraking operations began and lasted about five months. Aerobraking utilized the atmospheric drag to reduce the large elliptical orbit into a smaller, near circular orbit. At the time of MRO aerobraking, there were three other operational spacecraft orbiting Mars and the navigation team had to minimize the possibility of a collision. This paper describes the daily operations of the MRO navigation team during this time as well as the collision avoidance strategy development and implementation.

Long, Stacia M.↗

NASA NTRS2007

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Interplanetary Navigation

This viewgraph presentation reviews the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) interplanetary navigation. An interplanetary overview including dynamic models of outgassing, small force calibration and trending, solar radiation pressure and trajectory correction maneuvers are also described.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)↗

NASA NTRS2004

Spitzer Space Telescope mission design

This paper gives a description of the mission design, launch, orbit, and navigation results for the Spitzer space telescope mission. The Spitzer telescope was launched by the Delta II Heavy launch vehicle into a heliocentric Earth trailing orbit. This orbit is flown for the first time and will be used by several future astronomical missions such as Kepler, SIM, and LISA. This paper describes the launch strategy for a winter versus a summer launch and how it affects communications. It also describes how the solar orbit affects the design and operations of the Observatory. It describes the actual launch timeline, launch vehicle flight performance, and the long term behavior of the as flown orbit. It also provides the orbit knowledge from in-flight navigation data.

Mission Design↗