Date of Award

12-1992

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

First Advisor

William E. Wiesel, PhD

Abstract

This study investigates earth satellite orbit estimation on a track of range, azimuth, and elevation data from a single tracking station. The estimation routine is a least squares batch filter based solely on two-body orbital motion. Using equinoctial elements for the reference orbit avoids the numerical difficulties of the classical elements at eccentricities near zero and inclinations near zero or 90 degrees. Orbits for Mir, DMSP, Explorer, Cosmos, and GPS are investigated. The goal of this study is to reduce orbit information from observations (range, azimuth, and elevation) to an element set and a covariance matrix without considering perturbation effects. The results indicate that the lower orbiting earth satellites had large J2 perturbations on the equinoctial elements causing the differential corrector to diverge. Higher orbiting satellites had minimal J2 effects and the correction process sufficiently extracted all information from the data and successfully reduced the observations to an element set and a covariance matrix.... Equinoctial elements, Differential correction, Least squares method, Data reduction, Batch processing, Earth orbits, Two-Body motion.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GA-ENY-92D-15

DTIC Accession Number

ADA259004

Comments

The author's Vita page is omitted.

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