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The Magellan spacecraft has been aerobraked into a 197 x 541 km near-circular orbit around Venus from which it is conducting a high-resolution gravity mapping mission. This was the first interplanetary aerobrake maneuver and involved flying the spacecraft through the upper reaches of the Venusian atmosphere 730 times over a 70 day period.
On May 25, 1993 the Magellan spacecraft began an experiment on 'aerobraking', or use of aerodynamic drag from the Venusian atmosphere to provide deceleration. The Magellan spacecraft will strive to transition from a highly elliptical orbit into a near-circular orbit in approximately 70 days by successively dipping into the atmosphere to gain the necessary reduction in orbital velocity. Magellan will be the first three-axis stabilized spacecraft to perform this type of multipass aerobraking, and will also be attempting to achieve the largest velocity reduction to date, all with a spacecraft that was not designed for this application. This paper addresses redesign of the attitude control system onboard Magellan for use during aerobraking. The dynamics and control of the spacecraft were simulated, and these results are presented and summarized. Modifications necessary to the existing flight control system and, specifically, to the mass expulsion control scheme are discussed. Changes were minimized though, due to the low-cost, high-risk approach to Magellan's aerobraking experiment. Some initial flight results from the first week of aerobraking operations will be highlighted.
A spherical harmonic model of the gravitational field of Venus complete to degree and order 50 has been developed using the S-band Doppler tracking data of the Pioneer Venus Orbiter (PVO) collected between 1979 and 1982. The short wavelengths of this model could only be resolved near the PVO periapse location (about 14 deg N latitude), therefore a priori constraints were applied to the model to bias poorly observed coefficients towards zero. The resulting model has a half-wavelength resolution of 400 km near the PVO periapse location, but the resolution degrades to greater than 1000 km near the poles. This gravity model correlates well with a degree 50 spherical harmonic expansion of the Venus topography derived from a combination of Magellan and PVO data. New tracking data from Magellan's gravity mission should provide some improvement to this model, although a complete model of the Venusian gravity field will depend on tracking of Magellan after the circularization of its orbit using aerobraking.
Aerobraking has proven to be an enabling technology for planetary missions to Mars and has been proposed to enable low cost missions to Venus. Aerobraking saves a significant amount of propulsion fuel mass by exploiting atmospheric drag to reduce the eccentricity of the initial orbit. The solar arrays have been used as the primary drag surface and only minor modifications have been made in the vehicle design to accommodate the relatively modest aerothermal loads. However, if atmospheric density is highly variable from orbit to orbit, the mission must either accept higher aerothermal risk, a slower pace for aerobraking, or a tighter corridor likely with increased propulsive cost. Hence, knowledge of atmospheric variability is of great interest for the design of aerobraking missions. The first planetary aerobraking was at Venus during the Magellan mission. After the primary Magellan science mission was completed, aerobraking was used to provide a more circular orbit to enhance gravity field recovery. Magellan aerobraking took place between local solar times of 1100 and 1800 hrs, and it was found that the Venusian atmospheric density during the aerobraking phase had less than 10% 1 sigma orbit to orbit variability. On the other hand, at some latitudes and seasons, Martian variability can be as high as 40% 1 sigmaFrom both the MGN and PVO mission it was known that the atmosphere, above aerobraking altitudes, showed greater variability at night, but this variability was never quantified in a systematic manner. This paper proposes a model for atmospheric variability that can be used for aerobraking mission design until more complete data sets become available.
The Magellan spacecraft has provided high resolution gravity data to its very end, October 13, 1994, when it was consumed by the Venusian atmosphere. After aerobraking in August of 1993 to attain a near circular orbit, excellent high latitude data were acquired which previously were very weak during the elliptical orbit coverage. There are 1500 orbits during the near circular orbit, supplying redundant coverage at different geometries over many features. This allowed the relaxation of apriori constraints, so true amplitudes are being extracted from the data. In this paper we present the results of a 75(sup th) degree and order field that incorporates all the old Pioneer Venus Orbiter data as well as all the Magellan data to September 1994. The new results reflect even higher correlation with topography, higher amplitude values for the highs and lows, and global results that have essentially very little apriori constraint on the solution parameters. We also correlate our new model with the earlier ones based on 60(sup th) and 40(sup th) degree and order presentations.
The Magellan spacecraft has been aerobraked into a 197 x 541 km near-circular orbit around Venus from which it is conducting a high-resolution gravity mapping mission. This was the first interplanetary aerobrake maneuver and involved flying the spacecraft through the upper reaches of the Venusian atmosphere 730 times over a 70 day period. Round-trip light-time varied from 9.57 to 18.83 minutes during this period. Navigation for this dynamic phase of the Magellan mission was planned and executed in the face of budget-driven down-sizing with all spacecraft safe modes disabled and a flight-team one-third the size of comparable interplanetary missions. Successful execution of this manuever using spacecraft hardware not designed to operate in a planetary atmosphere, demonstrated a practical cost-saving technique for both large and small future interplanetary missions.
Acquisition of a new high quality gravity data set has begun. The data set presently covers one third of the Venusian longitude. Better spatial resolution is obtained from a 60th degree and order spherical harmonic solution. Plans for aerobraking in May 1993 into a near circular orbit will provide excellent data for higher latitude regions.