Mon Dec 15, F. Flechtner
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Pan, Xudong, Yang, Fan, and Wu, Yi, 2025. A Statistically Optimized Star Camera Fusion Approach for the Attitude Determination of Low-Low Satellite-to-Satellite Tracking Mission. IEEE Sensors Journal, 25(15):28800–28814, doi:10.1109/JSEN.2025.3578622.
• from the NASA Astrophysics Data System • by the DOI System •
@ARTICLE{2025ISenJ..2528800P,
author = {{Pan}, Xudong and {Yang}, Fan and {Wu}, Yi},
title = "{A Statistically Optimized Star Camera Fusion Approach for the Attitude Determination of Low-Low Satellite-to-Satellite Tracking Mission}",
journal = {IEEE Sensors Journal},
keywords = {Attitude determination, covariance matrix, fusion, global navigation satellite system (GNSS), gravity recovery and climate experiment [GRACE(-FO)], low-low Satellite-to-Satellite Tracking (ll-SST), star camera (SC), temporal gravity field},
year = 2025,
month = jan,
volume = {25},
number = {15},
pages = {28800-28814},
abstract = "{Precise attitude determination is essential for orbit determination and
time-variable gravity field recovery from low-low Satellite-to-
Satellite Tracking (ll-SST) missions, e.g., GRACE and its
successor, GRACE-FO. The acquisition of attitude information
relies on the fusion of multiple onboard star cameras (SCs),
where a precise estimation of noise covariance (between three
axes and between SCs) is required. However, the previous
assumption of noise may be unrealistic. In this study, we used
the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) orbit to benchmark
SC and obtained dynamic, nonhomogeneous, and robust noise
covariances for the first time. Furthermore, these realistic
covariances enable a quaternion-based generalized least-squares
(GLS) solution toward a statistically optimal attitude
determination. This novel framework, which makes use of GNSS as
``prior'' information to establish a Bayesian-like fusion, is
referred to as the GNSS-aided SC Fusion (GSCF) approach. It is
used for GRACE-FO attitude determination throughout 2020 for
demonstration purposes. Compared to the traditional method that
assumes empirical covariance matrices, GSCF has a major impact
on a cycle per revolution (CPR) frequency and its harmonics with
a magnitude of [‑9.6, 8.5] arcsec at the confidence level 99\%.
Further tests in terms of inter-satellite pointing analysis
confirm the improvement of GSCF over the traditional method,
i.e., with a long-term mean reduction of pointing variation by
0.037 mrad in roll and 0.046 mrad in pitch direction. In
addition, our approach has shown a consistent improvement in the
daily mean range antenna offset correction (AOC), i.e., up to
18.40 nm, and the range rate AOC standard deviation (STD) has
also been consistently reduced, up to 1.17 nm/s. Finally, the
main impact on the inter-satellite ranging rate is within 2
nm/s. While these effects are likely marginal for current GRACE-
FO, the next-generation ll-SST gravity missions with ultrahigh-
precision payloads (e.g., laser ranging system with nanometer-
level accuracy) that will be extremely sensitive to the attitude
determination can benefit from the proposed GSCF method.}",
doi = {10.1109/JSEN.2025.3578622},
adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025ISenJ..2528800P},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
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Mon Dec 15, F. Flechtner