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Aerospace
Special Issues
Orbit Determination of Earth Orbiting Objects
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Orbit Determination of Earth Orbiting Objects

A special issue of Aerospace (ISSN 2226-4310).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2020) | Viewed by 6527

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Fabrizio Piergentili

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy
Interests: space; satellite; astrodynamics; control systems engineering; space technology; spacecraft; aeronautical engineering; orbital mechanics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The development of emerging technologies aiming to reduce the size of electronic components, thus improving their efficiency, give a dramatic impulse to launch a large number of objects into orbit. The number of nano- and micro-satellites, as well as CubeSats, are increasing constantly, and new mega constellations will overcrowd the Earth’s orbit in the near future. This situation will lead to needing more efficient and reliable technologies for tracking and measuring orbital objects, both operative and not. For example, as the requirements in measurement accuracy for determining the impact point of the reentering objects have increased to meet the growing demands of public safety, traditional methods have to be improved, together with the introduction of more advanced analysis techniques and observation technologies. Complex systems based on ground-based measurements (radar and optical), capable of improving the accuracy of trajectory determination, and to permit the physical characterization, in terms of shape and materials, of these objects, may be expected to continuously drive advancement in this field.

This Special Issue aims to provide an overview of the recent advances in trajectory and attitude estimation, and the physical characterization of Earth orbiting objects, especially applied to the operation and reentry phase. Authors are invited to submit full research articles and review manuscripts addressing (but not limited to) the following topics:

  • Methods for initial orbit determination
  • Catalogue build-up and maintenance
  • Data fusion from different sources
  • Advanced ground- and space-based measurement techniques
  • Attitude determination of orbiting objects from on ground measurements
  • Photometry and spectroscopy of space debris
  • Reentering object trajectory estimation
  • Conjunction analysis
  • Mega constellation tracking and measurements

Prof. Dr. Fabrizio Piergentili
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Aerospace is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • aerospace
  • orbit and attitude determination
  • space debris measurements

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 7998 KiB  
Article
LEO Object’s Light-Curve Acquisition System and Their Inversion for Attitude Reconstruction
by Fabrizio Piergentili, Gaetano Zarcone, Leonardo Parisi, Lorenzo Mariani, Shariar Hadji Hossein and Fabio Santoni
Aerospace 2021, 8(1), 4; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace8010004 - 23 Dec 2020
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 2897
Abstract
In recent years, the increase in space activities has brought the space debris issue to the top of the list of all space agencies. The fact of there being uncontrolled objects is a problem both for the operational satellites in orbit (avoiding collisions) [...] Read more.
In recent years, the increase in space activities has brought the space debris issue to the top of the list of all space agencies. The fact of there being uncontrolled objects is a problem both for the operational satellites in orbit (avoiding collisions) and for the safety of people on the ground (re-entry objects). Optical systems provide valuable assistance in identifying and monitoring such objects. The Sapienza Space System and Space Surveillance (S5Lab) has been working in this field for years, being able to take advantage of a network of telescopes spread over different continents. This article is focused on the re-entry phase of the object; indeed, the knowledge of the state of the object, in terms of position, velocity, and attitude during the descent, is crucial in order to predict as accurately as possible the impact point on the ground. A procedure to retrieve the light curves of orbiting objects by means of optical data will be shown and a method to obtain the attitude determination from their inversion based on a stochastic optimization (genetic algorithm) will be proposed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Orbit Determination of Earth Orbiting Objects)
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16 pages, 3487 KiB  
Article
Evaluation of Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) Networks Performance for Launcher Vehicles and Spacecraft Tracking
by Paolo Marzioli, Fabio Santoni and Fabrizio Piergentili
Aerospace 2020, 7(10), 151; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace7100151 - 20 Oct 2020
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 2708
Abstract
Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) networks could support spacecraft orbit determination or near-space (launcher and suborbital) vehicle tracking for an increased number of satellite launches and space missions in the near future. The evaluation of the geometry of TDOA networks could involve the [...] Read more.
Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) networks could support spacecraft orbit determination or near-space (launcher and suborbital) vehicle tracking for an increased number of satellite launches and space missions in the near future. The evaluation of the geometry of TDOA networks could involve the dilution of precision (DOP), but this parameter is related to a single position of the target, while the positioning accuracy of the network with targets in the whole celestial vault should be evaluated. The paper presents the derivation of the MDOP (minimum dilution of precision), a parameter that can be used for evaluating the performance of TDOA networks for spacecraft tracking and orbit determination. The MDOP trend with respect to distance, number of stations and target altitude is reported in the paper, as well as examples of applications for network performance evaluation or time precision requirement definitions. The results show how an increase in the baseline enables the inclusion of more impactive improvements on the MDOP and the mean error than an increase in the number of stations. The target altitude is demonstrated as noninfluential for the MDOP trend, making the networks uniformly applicable to lower altitude (launchers and suborbital vehicles) and higher altitude (Low and Medium Earth Orbits satellites) spacecraft. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Orbit Determination of Earth Orbiting Objects)
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