AAS 04-136 NEW HORIZONS PLUTO APPROACH NAVIGATION
The navigation of the New Horizons spacecraft during approach to Pluto and its satellite Charon is described. The great distance of the spacecraft from the Earth and Sun presents several new challenges that are identified and described by analytic formula. The two-body dynamics present a particularly interesting problem of satellite orbit determination. A complete covariance analysis is performed describing navigation and science data acquisition accuracies. The results of the covariance analysis are compared with analytic formula to provide insight into the operation of the navigation system.
The application of differential VLBI to planetary approach orbit determination
The application of differential very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) to planetary approach orbit determination is described. VLBI has resulted from the development of multistation tracking techniques and measures spacecraft and nearby extragalactic radio sources. VLBI was found to be at least an order of magnitude improvement over data types currently implemented.
Fast missions to Pluto using Jupiter gravity-assist and small launch vehicles
This paper gives a quantitative comparison of short trip time, direct transfer Earth-Pluto trajectories having launch windows in 1999,2000, and 2001 that require Titan IV/Centaur launch vehicles with gravity-assist EarthJupiter-Plato trajectories having launch windows in 2002,2003, and 2004 for the exploration of Pluto. It is shown that by utilizing fast, gravity-assist Earth-Jupiter-Pluto trajectories rather than fast, direct transfer Earth-Pluto trajectories, missions to Pluto can be accomplished with much larger spacecraft using much smaller launch vehicles. This will result in a major cost reduction and, at the same time, provide a major increase in scientific return.