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.


    Zugriff

    Zugriff über TIB

    Verfügbarkeit in meiner Bibliothek prüfen


    Exportieren, teilen und zitieren



    Titel :

    Atmospheric drag perturbations on the Mars Observer Orbiter


    Beteiligte:
    Esposito, P. B. (Autor:in) / Demcak, S. (Autor:in)

    Kongress:

    AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics Conference 1989 ; 1989 ; Stowe, VT, United States


    Erscheinungsdatum :

    01.01.1990


    Medientyp :

    Aufsatz (Konferenz)


    Format :

    Keine Angabe


    Sprache :

    Englisch


    Schlagwörter :



    Perturbations due to Atmospheric Drag

    Longuski, James M. / Hoots, Felix R. / Pollock IV, George E. | Springer Verlag | 2021


    Atmospheric Monitoring of Mars by the Mars Orbiter Camera on Mars Global Surveyor

    James, P. B. / Cantor, B. A. / International Council of Scientific Unions | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2002


    Mars Orbiter Mission

    Lele, Ajey | Springer Verlag | 2013