AAS 97-705

USE OF THE RAVEN OPTICAL SENSOR FOR DEEP-SPACE ORBIT DETERMINATION

LtCol S. Wallace, C. Sabol and LtCol S. Carter - Phillips Laboratory/VTA

Abstract

RAVEN is an inexpensive, portable optical sensor that provides highly accurate observations on deep space objects. This paper discusses the details of the Raven telescope including its operation, the potential accuracy of the angular measurements produced by the Raven system, the impact of these observations on the accuracy of the orbit determination process, and an analysis of the observations that have been collected by the systems both at Maui and Albuquerque. Simulated data is used to evaluate the potential of Raven data to produce deep space orbits. External reference orbits on GPS satellites (available on the world wide web from the IGS) and TDRS satellites, available from NASA, are used as truth orbits to compare to the real Raven observations. The orbit determination results from Raven data in GTDS (Goddard Trajectory and Determination System) is presented to demonstrate the real world capability of this sensor to generate quality orbits. Special attention is paid to the len