THE EFFECT OF UNMODELED ERRORS ON ORBITAL ESTIMATION,

Abstract

One of the major problems in orbital estimation is to realistically obtain an estimate of the accuracy of the orbit trajectory and other parameters, such as instrumentation biases and survey. Some of the uncontrollable (i.e. unmodeled) factors that contribute to the total uncertainty are survey uncertainties of the tracking stations, uncertainties in the geopotential constants and drag uncertainty. A statistical technique is described that performs a variance propagation so as to obtain accuracy estimates based on random error plus unmodeled effects. This variance propagation then yields realistic accuracy estimates of all adjustable parameters. An example of the unmodeled error propagation is shown for the Geos B satellite. In this case accuracy of instrumentation biases and survey were of the most importance. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 1968
Accession Number
AD0673880

Entities

People

  • Norman Bush

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Artificial Satellites
  • Congress
  • Errors
  • Geopotential
  • Instrumentation
  • Orbits
  • Stations
  • Tracking Stations
  • Trajectories
  • Uncertainty

Fields of Study

  • Mathematics

Readers

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics.
  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Geodesy

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Orbital Debris