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.


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    Title :

    Atmospheric drag perturbations on the Mars Observer Orbiter


    Contributors:

    Conference:

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


    Publication date :

    1990-01-01


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English


    Keywords :



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