This paper addresses the problem of estimating the masses of Phobos and Deimos from Doppler and onboard optical measurements during the Viking extended mission. A Kalman filter is used to analyze the effects of gravitational uncertainties and nongravitational accelerations. These accelerations destroy the dynamical integrity of the orbit and multi-batch or limited memory filtering is preferred to single batch processing. Optical tracking is essential to improve the relative orbit geometry. The masses can be determined to about 10% and 25% respectively for Phobos and Deimos, assuming satellite densities of about 3 g per cu cm.
Accuracy of estimating the masses of Phobos and Deimos from multiple Viking orbiter encounters
Astrodynamics Specialist Conference ; 1975 ; Nassau, Bahamas
1975-07-01
Conference paper
No indication
English
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1994
|British Library Conference Proceedings | 1994
|