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Short arc orbit determination for altimeter calibration and validation on TOPEX/POSEIDONTOPEX/POSEIDON (T/P) is a joint mission of United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and French Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) design launched August 10, 1992. It carries two radar altimeters which alternately share a common antenna. There are two project designated verification sites, a NASA site off the coast at Pt. Conception, CA and a CNES site near Lampedusa Island in the Mediterranean Sea. Altimeter calibration and validation for T/P is performed over these highly instrumented sites by comparing the spacecraft's altimeter radar range to computed range based on in situ measurements which include the estimated orbit position. This paper presents selected results of orbit determination over each of these sites to support altimeter verification. A short arc orbit determination technique is used to estimate a locally accurate position determination of T/P from less than one revolution of satellite laser ranging (SLR) data. This technique is relatively insensitive to gravitational and non-gravitational force modeling errors and is demonstrated by covariance analysis and by comparison to orbits determined from longer arcs of data and other tracking data types, such as Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) and Global Positioning System Demonstration Receiver (GPSDR) data.
Document ID
19950049799
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Williams, B. G.
(Jet Propulsion Lab. California Inst. of Tech., Pasadena, CA, US, United States)
Christensen, E. J.
(Jet Propulsion Lab. California Inst. of Tech., Pasadena, CA, US, United States)
Yuan, D. N.
(Jet Propulsion Lab. California Inst. of Tech., Pasadena, CA, US, United States)
Mccoll, K. C.
(Jet Propulsion Lab. California Inst. of Tech., Pasadena, CA, US, United States)
Sunseri, R. F.
(Jet Propulsion Lab. California Inst. of Tech., Pasadena, CA, US, United States)
Date Acquired
August 16, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1993
Publication Information
Publication: In: Spaceflight mechanics, 1993; AAS(AIAA Spaceflight Mechanics Meeting, 3rd, Pasadena, CA, Feb. 22-24, 1993, Parts 1 & 2 . A95-81344
Publisher: American Astronautical Society (Advances in the Astronautical Sciences, Vol. 82, Pts. 1 & 2)
ISSN: 0065-3438
Subject Category
Spacecraft Instrumentation
Accession Number
95A81398
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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