Philip Castro, Applied Optimization Inc.; Tamara Payne, Applied Optimization Inc.; Victoria Frey, Applied Optimization; Kimberly Kinateder, Applied Optimization; Trenton Godar, NASIC/GSMS
Keywords: Photometry, Calibration, Space Situational Awareness (SSA), Space Domain Awareness (SDA)
Abstract:
We present a standardized process for the Space Domain Awareness (SDA) community to calculate the photometric uncertainties of the instrumental and standard magnitudes. The SDA data providers currently each have their own approach to calculate the uncertainties of the instrumental and standard magnitudes, or do not report these values at all. The instrumental and standard magnitude uncertainties represent the precision of the data collected, an important measure of the quality of the photometry of Resident Space Objects (RSOs). The standardized process presented was developed from first principles of uncertainty propagation and standard astronomical techniques. We thoroughly reviewed the theoretical background on uncertainty propagation and standard astronomical techniques from the literature and combined these in order to derive expressions for the instrumental and standard magnitude uncertainties. We provide a detailed comparison between the instrumental magnitude uncertainties of the standard astronomical technique (Quadrature) and the Computer Calculation of Uncertainties method. Finally, we derive an expression for the standard magnitude uncertainty that can be used by the SDA community.
Date of Conference: September 15-18, 2020
Track: Non-Resolved Object Characterization