This paper extends a previously developed method for finding spacecraft initial conditions (ICs) that minimize the drift resulting from J2 disturbances while also minimizing the fuel required to attain those ICs. It generalizes the single spacecraft optimization to a formation-wide optimization valid for an arbitrary number of vehicles. Additionally, the desired locations of the spacecraft, sep...

Abstruct-The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate robust compensators designed using Popov controller synthesis on the Middeck Active Control Experiment (MACE): a Shuttle program scheduled for flight in January, 1995. The experiment has been designed to investigate the extent to which the on-orbit behavior of a precision-controlled spacecraft can be predicted and controlled using analysis an...

The problem of determining minimum-fuel maneuver sequences for a four-spacecraft formation is considered. The objective of this paper is to determine fuel-optimal configuration trajectories that transfer a four spacecraft formation from an initial parking orbit to a desired terminal reference orbit while satisfying particular formation constraints. In this paper, the configuration problem is so...

We report the detection of a transit egress by the ∼ 3.9-Jupiter-mass planet HD 80606b, an object in a highly-eccentric orbit (e ∼ 0.93) about its parent star of approximately solar type. The astrophysical reality of the signal of variability in HD 80606 is confirmed by observation with two independent telescope systems, and checks against several reference stars in the field. Differential phot...

Analysis of GNSS clocks performance is traditionally carried out by network analysis techniques where orbits and all participant clocks are computed in a batch or Kalman Filter least-squares adjustment to a reference time scale and reference frame. Several companies, organizations, and IGS analysis centers produce postprocessing orbits and clock estimations mainly at 15 or 5 minutes respectivel...

The Galileo Ground Segment design includes a global network of Galileo Sensor Stations (GSS) to be used for orbit determination, time synchronization, and integrity determination. NovAtel, under contract to ESA, is developing the requirements for the high quality Ground Reference Receivers to be used in the GSS. During the design process NovAtel is leveraging their experience as the world’s lea...

The space around the Earth is filled with man-made objects, which orbit the planet at altitudes ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of kilometers. Keeping an eye on all objects in Earth's orbit, useful and not useful, operational or not, is known as Space Surveillance. Due to cost considerations, the space surveillance solutions beyond the Low Earth Orbit region are mainly based on optic...

The spin-orbit coupling constants (Av+) for O+2(A 2Πu,v+=0–17) and O+2(a 4Πu,v+=0–25) were computed based on the Pauli–Breit Hamiltonian with one and two electron terms for comparison with experimental measurements. In the present theoretical study, the vibrational wave functions are obtained using the potential energy curve calculated at the multireference configuration interaction (MRCI) leve...