Deep Space Navigation Automation and Autonomy: A Technical and Cost Survey
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information processing techniques hardware radio n↗
Engineering topics
Pollmeier, Vincent M.
Publications and source records attributed to Pollmeier, Vincent M..
ARTSN: An Automated Real-Time Spacecraft Navigation System
As part of the Deep Space Network (DSN) advanced technology program an effort is underway to design a filter to automate the deep space navigation process.The automated real-time spacecraft navigation (ARTSN) filter task is based on a prototype consisting of a FORTRAN77 package operating on an HP-9000/700 workstation running HP-UX 9.05. This will be converted to C, and maintained as the operational version. The processing tasks required are: (1) read a measurement, (2) integrate the spacecraft state to the current measurement time, (3) compute the observable based on the integrated state, and (4) incorporate the measurement information into the state using an extended Kalman filter. This filter processes radiometric data collected by the DSN. The dynamic (force) models currently include point mass gravitational terms for all planets, the Sun and Moon, solar radiation pressure, finite maneuvers, and attitude maintenance activity modeled quadratically. In addition, observable errors due to troposphere are included. Further data types, force and observable models will be ncluded to enhance the accuracy of the models and the capability of the package. The heart of the ARSTSN is a currently available continuous-discrete extended Kalman filter. Simulated data used to test the implementation at various stages of development and the results from processing actual mission data are presented.
Burkhart, P. Daniel↗
Multi-spacecraft coherent Doppler and ranging for interplanetary-navigation
Future plans for planetary exploration currently include using multiple spacecraft to simultaneously explore one planet. This never before encountered situation places new demands on tracking systems used to support navigation. One possible solution to the problem of heavy ground resource conflicts is the use of multispacecraft coherent radio metric data, also known as, bent-pipe data. Analysis of the information content of these data types show that the information content of multi-spacecraft Doppler is dependent only on the frequency of the final downlink leg and is independent of the frequencies used on other legs. Numerical analysis shows that coherent bent-pipe data can provide significantly better capability to estimate the location of a lander on the surface of Mars than can direct lander to Earth radio metric data. However, this is complicated by difficulties in separating the effect of a lander position error from that of an orbiter position error for single passes of data.
Pollmeier, Vincent M.↗
Guidance and Navigation for the Mars Pathfinder Mission
The Mars Pathfinder Project is being developed by the U.S. (NASA) to demonstrate new technologies for landing on Mars, and to conduct focused, but significant scientific observations.
Pathfinder cheaper faster better low cost new tech↗
Multi-Spacecraft Coherent Doppler and Ranging for Interplanetary Navigation
Future interplanetary mission concepts are increasingly focusing on multi-spacecraft missions and on small sample return missions which may involve the rendezvous between a spacecraft which brings a sample from the surface of a solar system body and a spacecraft which will return the sample to the Earth. These types of missions place tight requirements on the knowledge of the relative positions of the spacecraft. Historically spacecraft positions have been determined by the use of radio metric data (Doppler and range) between the spacecraft and terrestrial receiving stations. However, the various systems available place tight requirements on the stability of onboard frequency standards on each spacecraft and on the precision of the data extraction hardware on the spacecraft. An alternative is to extend the coherent ground to spacecraft link through one spacecraft to the other and then to the ground or back through the first spacecraft and to the ground receiver. Although this might appear initially to complicate the separation of the dynamics of the two spacecraft, this paper will show that in actual application, judicious selection of spacecraft transponder frequency ratios and the use of coherent Doppler and ranging and the derived observable, DRVID (Differenced Range vs. Integrated Doppler) can allow for the generation of observable equations which are dominated by the spacecraft to spacecraft link.
interplanetary↗
Precision X-Band Doppler and Ranging Navigation For Current and Future Mars Exploration Missions
This paper describes a navigation error convariance analysis of two scenarios derived from the Mars Observer mission and the planned Mars Environmental Survey (MESUR) Pathfinder mission, respectively. The analysis was performed to establish the potential navigational performance of the X-band tracking system in NASA's Deep Space Network, and to evaluate the sensitivity of the Predicted performance to variations in the quantity of data acquired, the ground system error modeling assumptions, and data reduction schemes.
Precision↗
XRTD: An X-Windows based, real-time radiometric display and analysis system
XRTD is a graphical user interface (GUI) based tool for monitoring real time radiometric spacecraft data. The tool is designed to allow the navigation analyst to both view and analyze the characteristics of Doppler and ranging data. This capability is critical if ground personnel wish to verify the correct performance of ongoing maneuvers. The raw tracking data is transferred from Deep Space Network (DSN) computers to a local workstation, where the predicted value for the observable is subtracted from the actual observed value to create a residual. The tool then allows the navigation analyst to rescale and replot the data using simple GUI techniques. The navigator may then perform a number of data analysis and modeling techniques on the resulting residuals to allow for the real time characterization of spacecraft events. These techniques include the modeling of maneuvers, the compression and differencing of data, and Fast Fourier transforms of the data. This tool has shortened the amount of time required for initial characterization of spacecraft maneuvers from several hours to a few minutes.
Pollmeier, Vincent M.↗
Precision X-band Doppler and ranging navigation for current and future Mars exploration missions
This paper describes a navigation error covariance analysis of two scenarios derived from the Mars Observer mission and the planned Mars Environmental SURvey (MESUR) Pathfinder mission, respectively. The analysis was performed to establish the potential navigational performance of the X-band tracking system in NASA's Deep Space Network, and to evaluate the sensitivity of the predicted performance to variations in the quantity of data acquired, the ground system error modeling assumptions, and data reduction schemes. The simulated data arcs used in the analysis are representative of the actual data arcs that will be used to predict the aim point for the Mars orbit insertion maneuver, in the case of Mars Observer, and the interplanetary trajectory aim point corresponding to the target Mars landing site in the case of MESUR Pathfinder. The results indicate that with a suitable sequential data reduction scheme and accurate calibrations of instrumentation, transmission media, and platform model parameters, navigation accuracies of 5 to 15 km (1 sigma) can be achieved, equivalent to 15 to 40 nrad in geocentric angle uncertainty.
Estefan, Jeffrey A.↗
Application of high precision two-way S-band ranging to the navigation of the Galileo Earth encounters
The application of high-accuracy S/S-band (2.1 GHz uplink/2.3 GHz downlink) ranging to orbit determination with relatively short data arcs is investigated for the approach phase of each of the Galileo spacecraft's two Earth encounters (8 December 1990 and 8 December 1992). Analysis of S-band ranging data from Galileo indicated that under favorable signal levels, meter-level precision was attainable. It is shown that ranginging data of sufficient accuracy, when acquired from multiple stations, can sense the geocentric angular position of a distant spacecraft. Explicit modeling of ranging bias parameters for each station pass is used to largely remove systematic ground system calibration errors and transmission media effects from the Galileo range measurements, which would otherwise corrupt the angle finding capabilities of the data. The accuracy achieved using the precision range filtering strategy proved markedly better when compared to post-flyby reconstructions than did solutions utilizing a traditional Doppler/range filter strategy. In addition, the navigation accuracy achieved with precision ranging was comparable to that obtained using delta-Differenced One-Way Range, an interferometric measurement of spacecraft angular position relative to a natural radio source, which was also used operationally.
Pollmeier, Vincent M.↗