AAS 97-628
AUTONOMOUS NUCLEUS TRACKING FOR COMET/ASTEROID ENCOUNTERS: THE STARDUST EXAMPLE
S. Bhaskaran, J.E. Riedel, and S.P. Synnott - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Abstract
STARDUST is a mission to flyby the comet Wild-2 in early 2004 and return coma dust samples to Earth. During its 120-150 km flyby of the comet nuclues, a secondary science goal is to obtain images of the nucleus using the onboard navigation camera. Due to the large (~40 minute) round-trip light time, ground processing of navigation data to maintain the comet in the camera field-of-view is impractical. Thus, a simple, reliable, and fast algorithm was developed to close the navigation loop onboard during encounter. This paper describes the algorithm and the results of simulations to prove its feasibility.