Keywords:Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL); thermal modeling; thermo-optical modeling; nongravitational acceleration; Moon; gravity field
Publisher:Pasadena, CA : Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2012.
Citation:AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Specialist Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 13-16, 2012
Abstract:
We summarize work performed involving thermo-optical modeling of the two Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft. We derived several reconciled spacecraft thermo-optical models having varying detail. We used the simplest in calculating SRP acceleration, and used the most detailed to calculate acceleration due to thermal re-radiation. For the latter, we used both the output of pre-launch finite-element-based thermal simulations and downlinked temperature sensor telemetry. The estimation process to recover the lunar gravity field utilizes both a nominal thermal re-radiation accleration history and an apriori error model derived from that plus an off-nominal history, which bounds parameter uncertainties as informed by sensitivity studies.