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Orbit Determination Accuracy Analysis of the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission During Perigee RaiseThe Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Flight Dynamics Facility (FDF) will provide orbit determination and prediction support for the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission during the missions commissioning period. The spacecraft will launch into a highly elliptical Earth orbit in 2015. Starting approximately four days after launch, a series of five large perigee-raising maneuvers will be executed near apogee on a nearly every-other-orbit cadence. This perigee-raise operations concept requires a high-accuracy estimate of the orbital state within one orbit following the maneuver for performance evaluation and a high-accuracy orbit prediction to correctly plan and execute the next maneuver in the sequence. During early mission design, a linear covariance analysis method was used to study orbit determination and prediction accuracy for this perigee-raising campaign. This paper provides a higher fidelity Monte Carlo analysis using the operational COTS extended Kalman filter implementation that was performed to validate the linear covariance analysis estimates and to better characterize orbit determination performance for actively maneuvering spacecraft in a highly elliptical orbit. The study finds that the COTS extended Kalman filter tool converges on accurate definitive orbit solutions quickly, but prediction accuracy through orbits with very low altitude perigees is degraded by the unpredictability of atmospheric density variation.
Document ID
20140017410
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Pachura, Daniel A. (AI Solutions, Inc. Lanham, MD, United States)
Vavrina, Matthew A. (AI Solutions, Inc. Lanham, MD, United States)
Carpenter, J. R. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Wright, Cinnamon A. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
December 16, 2014
Publication Date
August 4, 2014
Subject Category
Astrodynamics
Report/Patent Number
GSFC-E-DAA-TN16897
Meeting Information
Meeting: AIAA Space 2014
Location: San Diego, CA
Country: United States
Start Date: August 4, 2014
End Date: August 7, 2014
Sponsors: American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Funding Number(s)
OTHER: 71114
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNG10CP02C
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
Keywords
MMS
Determination
Orbit

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