Light Curve Inversion for Characterization of Objects with Concavities
Abstract
Knowing the shape and surface properties of space objects is crucial for numerous applications:precise orbit propagation - for catalog maintenance, reentry prediction, and collision avoidance inthe presence of conservative forces such as drag -, reliable operational state determination, -for onorbit servicing, failures determination, and scheduling reactivation attempts- and identification ofsatellites and debris objects in order to judge intent, origin and aid active removal missions.Light curves, which are brightness measurements over time, are a straight forward and cheapway to gather information even possible with o-the-shelf telescope hardware. The light curveinversion problem, to obtain shape and surface properties, is however plagued with the very largeparameter space, consisting of estimating many shape and surface parameters, to be estimatedfrom one single measured quantity.In this new approach, we do not restrict or neglect the mathematical ambiguities, but populatethem probabilistically.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 09, 2018
- Source ID
- FA95501810154
Entities
People
- Carolin Frueh
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- United States Air Force
- University of Virginia