Jay McMahon, University of Colorado Boulder, Daniel Scheeres, University of Colorado Boulder
Keywords: Lightcurves, shape estimation, attitude estimation
Abstract:
Once a Resident Space Object’s (RSO) orbit has been determined, further observations are used to characterize the object. Basic information about the object, such as its shape and its attitude motion, are key pieces of information that can be used to infer what the object is and what it is doing – the foundation of Space Situational Awareness (SSA). A common type of measurement that is used to determine information about an RSO shape and attitude are lightcurves, which simply put are time series measurements of an object’s brightness. Although this information is widely used to characterize asteroid shapes and attitude, there are many assumptions made as the problem of determining the shape and attitude from the lightcurve information is technically ill-posed and unsolvable. Thus, it is highly desirable to fuse other information into the characterization problem in order to further constrain the RSO properties. This paper discusses a general method for processing lightcurve observations, and how detailed estimation of solar radiation pressure (SRP) forces obtained from the orbit determination process can be used to further constrain the characterization results.
Date of Conference: September 20-23, 2016
Track: Non-Resolved Object Characterization