Citation
Abstract
The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft is currently in orbit phase around the asteroid Eros. Altimeter range measurements from the laser altimeter instrument onboard NEAR are processed in combination with the primary tracking data types, including Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking and optical landmark tracking. As a backup observation type, the altimeter range measurements are not used to generate the operational orbits. Analysis of the impact of the altimeter observations on the estimation of the Eros shape model and the NEAR orbits is performed. The analysis includes an assessment of the impact of altimeter observations on solution convergence when difierent combinations of tracking data are used. The efiectiveness of using the altimeter observations to estimate the shape model while holding the orbits fixed is examined, and, similarly, the efiect of estimating the orbits while holding the shape model fixed is examined.
Details
- Volume
- 42-146
- Published
- August 15, 2001
- Pages
- 1–13
- File Size
- 945.1 KB