Citation

Abstract

One promising method to minimize asteroid ephemeris errors involves “selfcrossing” observations: A single asteroid is observed relative to the same star field at two different times so that the star-catalog error will essentially cancel out. This technique can potentially provide improvement of about a factor of 2.5 in time-offlight accuracy for the proposed Galileo spacecraft flyby of asteroid 243 Ida in 1993. This would enable improved spacecraft-instrument sequencing for the Ida encounter. Self-crossing techniques may also be useful for late 1990s asteroid encounters by the Cassini and Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) spacecraft.

Details

Volume
42-103
Published
November 15, 1990
Pages
87–96
File Size
544.2 KB