Geometric Integration: Difference between revisions
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==Motivation== | ==Motivation== | ||
The U.S. Air Force is collecting data in order to catalogue Earth orbiting satellites, objects and debris. Accurate tracking of all Earth-orbiting objects is important since their presence can be extremely hazardous to current space missions as well as disruptive for any future mission. One method currently used to estimate the attitude of such objects makes use of light curve data. This concept has also been improved upon in order to estimate the object's orbit trajectory and determine the object's shape. However, data is sparse as a result of the number of sensors available and the large amount of objects in orbit. In particular, for objects in low-Earth orbit (LEO), observation windows may last only a few minutes and opportunities to obtain data are infrequent. As a result, an object's attitude may often need to be propagated very accurately over long time intervals before an update is possible. | |||
==Approach== | ==Approach== |
Revision as of 16:32, 13 November 2012
What is Geometric Integration?
Motivation
The U.S. Air Force is collecting data in order to catalogue Earth orbiting satellites, objects and debris. Accurate tracking of all Earth-orbiting objects is important since their presence can be extremely hazardous to current space missions as well as disruptive for any future mission. One method currently used to estimate the attitude of such objects makes use of light curve data. This concept has also been improved upon in order to estimate the object's orbit trajectory and determine the object's shape. However, data is sparse as a result of the number of sensors available and the large amount of objects in orbit. In particular, for objects in low-Earth orbit (LEO), observation windows may last only a few minutes and opportunities to obtain data are infrequent. As a result, an object's attitude may often need to be propagated very accurately over long time intervals before an update is possible.