METHOD FOR DETERMINATION OF THE ACCURACY OF CLOSED DISTANT STATIONARY ORBITS DETERMINED FROM RANGE RATE

摘要

Orbit-determination-accuracy procedures were derived for inertially fixed orbits about distant bodies. This condition is realized only for binary stars but it is closely approximated over short time periods for orbits about the moon and the planets. Analysis of the results computed by using the stationary-orbit techniques would be indicative of the orbit-determination results computed by using short data arcs on slowly varying orbits. Analytic expressions for uncertainty in the orbit parameters were derived by assuming that a measurement was made every degree of true anomaly. These expressions could be used for other measurement schedules by application of a correction given by the inverse square root of the number of observations. The equations, as presented, are fairly brief and are applicable to short-arc orbit-determination accuracy, linearity, and convergence studies.