Ray tracing in relativistic astrometry: the satellite attitude error and the comprehensive error budget

摘要

The general relativistic analysis of the astrometric data which will be soon provided by the satellite GAIA-ready to be launched in 2012-should include an accurate estimation of the errors which are due to the uncertainties of the boundary conditions. These uncertainties stem from the errors of the observables which can be intrinsic but also induced by the instabilities of the satellite attitude. Following previous work, we take these additional sources of uncertainties into account and provide semi-analytically, at the requested order of accuracy O(c(-3)), the complete error equations for the line of sight and the stellar position at the emission event.