Autonomous One-Way Deep Space Navigation Methods and Clock Stability Requirements

Abstract

Autonomous navigation for spacecraft is not possible using two-way tracking today, but it is crucial during critical event such as when a spacecraft inserts into orbit around a planet in deep space exploration. As the Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC) diminishes in size and increases in stability, the accuracies of one-way radiometric observations are improved and can reach the demands of onboard one-way deep space spacecraft navigation using one or more ground transmitting stations on the earth. This paper is dedicated to the autonomous one-way onboard navigation with DSAC based uplink range and integrated Doppler observations coupled with inertial measurements onboard. Two non-trivial novel autonomous navigation approaches that uses one-way uplink observations and Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) are developed to provide completely absolute real-time deep space navigation. The developed approaches are verified by application on an example of Earth-to-Jupiter one-way real-time navigation.