Although direct measurements of the projected areas of various Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) satellite facets are impossible without high-resolution imaging, estimates of the albedo-Area (aA) product lead to the possibility of inferring the geometric size of an RSO based on the illuminated area. Such size estimates are an integral part of its identity because satellite mission capabilities can be inferred. We are engaged in parallel development of two methods for calculating aA for the body/communication antennas structures and one method for the solar panels. We have previously reported on the Two Facet Model (2FM) method for body aA, and here we discuss a method based on differences between new observations and a baseline catalog that has been constructed from the GEO Observations with Longitudinal Diversity Simultaneously (GOLDS) data. We report on evaluations of the 2FM and Differential Method (DM) algorithm results. We also discuss a new method of estimating solar panel aA by fitting new data that include specular glints. All of these measurement methods are compared to models and simulations that serve as a proxy for ground truth. Because of the partially directional nature of the composite Bi-directional Reflectivity Distribution Function (BRDF) of all bus-mounted appendages, variance of body aA results is expected to be significant. Short-term and long-term variance of the derived aAs will also be discussed.


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    Title :

    Development and Evaluation of New Methods for Estimating Albedo-Areas for Three-Axis Stabilized Geosynchronous Satellites


    Additional title:

    J of Astronaut Sci



    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2019-06-01


    Size :

    22 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English





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