One-way deep space navigation with radiometric and inertial data fusion

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 with a single transmitting station. This paper is dedicated to the autonomous one-way onboard navigation with radiometric and inertial data fusion. DSAC based uplink range and integrated Doppler observations from a single transmitting station are used as the radiometric tracking data. The inertial tracking data are obtained from the outputs of an inertial measurement unit (IMU). A novel autonomous navigation approach that uses one-way uplink observations and IMU is developed to provide completely absolute real-time deep space navigation. The developed approach is verified by application on an example of Earth-to-Jupiter one-way real-time navigation.