A Star Angle/StarNAV Integrated Navigation Method for Jupiter Exploration

Abstract

Due to Jupiter’s long distance from us，the positional error of Jupiter can reach hundreds of kilometers，posing significant challenges to autonomous navigation for spacecraft. To address this issue，a star angle/StarNAV integrated navigation method was proposed. By analyzing the impact of ephemeris error of Jupiter on StarNAV，it was observed that velocity error of Jupiter had a greater influence on StarNAV，while positional error had a relatively smaller effect. Considering that Jupiter's positional error is relatively large while its velocity error was small，the integration of star angle navigation and StarNAV was applied to Jupiter exploration. In this method，Star Angle navigation provides the spacecraft's position relative to Jupiter，while StarNAV primarily supplies the velocity information of the spacecraft's relative to Jupiter. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed integrated navigation method is nearly unaffected by Jupiter's ephemeris error and achieves significantly higher accuracy than Star Angle navigation or StarNAV alone，providing high-precision autonomous navigation information for Jupiter exploration.

Keywords

Jupiter exploration / autonomous navigation / ephemeris error / integrated navigation