The navigation of the International Cometary Explorer for its encounter with Comet Giacobini-Zinner, provided by orbit determination using radio metric data from the 64-m Deep Space Network antennas in California and Spain, is discussed. Orbital solutions providing predictions of 50-km geocentric delivery accuracy in the target plane were achieved using 6-12 week data arcs between periodic attitude change maneuvers. The one-sigma two-way range and range rate were found to be 40 m and 0.2 mm/s or better, respectively. Post-flight analysis shows tail centerline passage to be achieved within 10 s of the predicted time, and a geocentric position uncertainty at the encounter of better than 40 km is found.


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    Title :

    Navigating the International Cometary Explorer for encounter with Comet Giacobini-Zinner


    Contributors:

    Publication date :

    1986-01-01


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English





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