Tom Kelecy (Boeing LTS), Edwin S. Barker (NASA/Johnson Space Center, Orbital Debris Program Office), Patrick Seitzer (The University of Michigan), Tim Payne (Air Force Space Command / A9AC), Robin Thurston 614 AOC/OL-B
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Abstract:
A subset of the population of deep space objects is thought to be high area-to-mass ratio (A/m) debris having origins from sources within the geosynchronous orbit (GEO) belt. The typical A/m values for these have been observed to range anywhere from 1s to 10s of m2/kg, and hence, are susceptible to significant solar radiation pressure effects which result in long-term migration of eccentricity (0.1-0.6) and inclination over time. However, the nature of the debris orientation-dependent dynamics also results time-varying solar radiation forces about an average value over shorter time scales which complicate the short-term orbit determination (OD) processing and prediction. In November of 2007, several of these objects were acquired and tracked from the 0.9 m telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile using prediction products derived from the orbit determination of optical angles tracking data. The estimated states computed using the Orbit Determination Tool Kit (ODTK) included dynamic estimation of the area-to-mass ratio, the variations of A/m relative to an average value. The work presented in this paper assesses the OD, prediction and tracking performance using the ODTK derived predictive products that were utilized during the survey, the CTIO tracking data that was collected, and the post-fit orbit products resulting from additional data collected after the observations. The OD and A/m estimation performance for a selected object tracked is presented, and the derived prediction performance is also analyzed by comparison with the CTIO 0.9 m telescope acquisition metrics. The post-fit prediction assessments of 10s of kilometers positional accuracy over 24-48 hour prediction spans is consistent with the arc-minute level tracking offsets that were observed.
Date of Conference: September 16-19, 2008
Track: