Contribution of PRIDE VLBI products to the joint JUICE-Europa Clipper moons’ ephemerides solution

In the coming decade, JUICE and Europa Clipper radio-science will yield the most accurate estimation to date of the Galilean moons’ physical parameters and ephemerides. JUICE's PRIDE (Planetary Radio Interferometry and Doppler Experiment) will help achieve such a solution by providing VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) observations of...

Tidally heated exomoons around Ïμ Eridani b: Observability and prospects for characterization

Context. Exomoons are expected to orbit gas giant exoplanets just as moons orbit Solar System planets. Tidal heating is present in Solar System satellites, and it can heat up their interior, depending on their orbital and interior properties. Aims. We aim to identify a tidally heated exomoon's (THEM) orbital parameter space that would make it...

Spacecraft VLBI tracking to enhance stellar occultations astrometry of planetary satellites

Context. Stellar occultations currently provide the most accurate ground-based measurements of the positions of natural satellites (down to a few kilometres for the Galilean moons). However, when using these observations in the calculation of satellite ephemerides, the uncertainty in the planetary ephemerides dominates the error budget of the...

Combining astrometry and JUICE-Europa Clipper radio science to improve the ephemerides of the Galilean moons

Context. The upcoming JUICE and Europa Clipper missions targeting Jupiter s Galilean satellites will provide radio science tracking measurements of both spacecraft. Such data are expected to significantly help estimating the moons ephemerides and related dynamical parameters (e.g. tidal dissipation parameters). However, the two missions will...

A Time-Frequency Local Polynomial Approach to FRM Estimation from Incomplete Data

Frequency Response Matrix (FRM) estimation from measured data is an important step towards the control of complex systems, including motion and thermal systems. Missing samples in the measured data records, e.g., due to sensor failure or faulty data transmission, often occur. In this paper, a method is presented for the nonparametric FRM...

Sensitivity analysis of polar orbiter motion to lunar viscoelastic tidal deformation

We investigate the impact of viscoelastic tidal deformation of the Moon on the motion of a polar orbiter. The dissipative effects in the Moon’s interior, i.e., tidal phase lags, are modeled as Fourier series sampled at given frequencies associated with linear combinations of Delaunay arguments, the fundamental parameters describing the lunar...

MaQuIs—Concept for a Mars Quantum Gravity Mission

The aim of this paper is to present the concept of a dedicated gravity field mission for the planet Mars, the Mars Quantum Gravity Mission (MaQuIs). The mission is targeted at improving the data on the gravitational field of Mars, enabling studies on planetary dynamics, seasonal changes, and subsurface water reservoirs. MaQuIs follows well...

A Wavelet-Based Approach to FRF Identification From Incomplete Data

Frequency response function (FRF) estimation from measured data is an essential step in the design, control, and analysis of complex dynamical systems, including thermal and motion systems. Especially for systems that require long measurement time, missing samples in the data record, e.g., due to measurement interruptions, often occur. The...

Cold Atom Interferometry for Enhancing the Radio Science Gravity Experiment: A Phobos Case Study

Interplanetary missions have typically relied on Radio Science (RS) to recover gravity fields by detecting their signatures on the spacecraft trajectory. The weak gravitational fields of small bodies, coupled with the prominent influence of confounding accelerations, hinder the efficacy of this method. Meanwhile, quantum sensors based on Cold...

Decoupled and coupled moons’ ephemerides estimation strategies application to the JUICE mission

When reconstructing natural satellites' ephemerides from space missions' tracking data, the dynamics of the spacecraft and natural bodies are often solved for separately, in a decoupled manner. Alternatively, the ephemeris generation and spacecraft orbit determination can be performed concurrently. This method directly maps the available data...

A Fast Smoothing-Based Algorithm to Generate l_∞-Norm Constrained Signals for Multivariable Experiment Design

Handling peak amplitude constraints, or equivalently l∞-norm constraints, is an important application demand in experiment design for system identification. The aim of this letter is to present a method for the design of excitation signals with prescribed power spectrum under l∞-norm constraints for systems with many inputs and outputs. The...

The Influence of Dynamic Solar Oblateness on Tracking Data Analysis from Past and Future Mercury Missions

When the BepiColombo spacecraft arrives at Mercury in late 2025, it will be able to measure the orbit of the planet with unprecedented accuracy, allowing for more accurate measurements of the perihelion advance of the planet, as predicted by the Theory of General Relativity (GR). A similar effect is produced by the gravitational oblateness of...

Frequency Response Function Identification from Incomplete Data: A Wavelet-based Approach

Frequency Response Function (FRF) identification plays a crucial role in the design, the control, and the analysis of complex dynamical systems, including thermal and motion systems. Especially for applications that require long measurements, missing data samples, e.g., due to interruptions in the data transmission or sensor failure, often...

Tidally heated exomoons around gas giants

Thousands of exoplanets have been discovered; however, the detection of exomoons remains elusive. Tidally heated exomoons have been proposed as candidate targets for observation; vigorous tidal dissipation can raise the moon's surface temperature, making direct imaging possible, and cause widespread volcanism that can have a signature in...

Analytical framework for mutual approximations: Derivation and application to Jovian satellites

Context. The apparent close encounters of two satellites in the plane of the sky, called mutual approximations, have been suggested as a different type of astrometric observation to refine the moons' ephemerides. The main observables are then the central instants of the close encounters, which have the advantage of being free of any scaling...

Propagation and estimation of the dynamical behaviour of gravitationally interacting rigid bodies

Next-generation planetary tracking methods, such as interplanetary laser ranging (ILR) and same-beam interferometry (SBI) promise an orders-of-magnitude increase in the accuracy of measurements of solar system dynamics. This requires a reconsideration of modelling strategies for the translational and rotational dynamics of natural bodies, to...

Laser and radio tracking for planetary science missions—a comparison

At present, tracking data for planetary missions largely consists of radio observables: range-rate (Doppler), range and angular position (VLBI/Δ DOR). Future planetary missions may use Interplanetary Laser Ranging (ILR) as a tracking observable. Two-way ILR will provide range data that are about 2 orders of magnitude more accurate than radio...

On a spectral method for forward gravity field modelling

This article reviews a spectral forward gravity field modelling method that was initially designed for topographic/isostatic mass reduction of gravity data. The method transforms 3D spherical density models into gravitational potential fields using a spherical harmonic representation. The binomial series approximation in the approach, which...