The Vesta gravity field, spin pole and rotation period, landmark positions, and ephemeris from the Dawn tracking and optical data

The Vesta gravity field and related physical parameters have been precisely measured using 10-months of radiometric Doppler and range data and optical landmark tracking from the Dawn spacecraft. The gravity field, orientation parameters, landmark locations, and Vesta’s orbit are jointly estimated. The resulting spherical harmonic gravity field has a half-wavelength resolution of 42 km (degree 20). The gravitational mass uncertainty is nearly 1 part in 10. The inertial spin pole location is determined to better than 0.0001 and the uncertainty in the rotation period has been reduced by nearly a factor of 100. The combined precession and nutation of the pole of Vesta has been detected with angular rates about 70% of expected values, but not well enough to constrain the moment of inertia. The optical landmark position estimates reduce the uncertainty in the center-of-mass and center-of-figure offset to 10 m. The Vesta ephemeris uncertainty during the Dawn stay was reduced from 20 km to better than 10 m in the Earth–Vesta direction. 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.