1. Beijing Institute of Control Engineering,Beijing 100081,China
2. China Academy of Space Technology,Beijing 100081,China
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2026-05-08
2026-11-03
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Abstract
To satisfy the requirements of highly autonomous and real-time Jupiter exploration, an autonomous orbit determination method based on active-reference measurements and stellar aberration was proposed. An onboard active optical reference source was used to establish a common alignment reference for multiple star trackers. By combining stellar aberration measurements derived from the optical axes of different star trackers with observations of Jupiter’s line-of-sight direction and apparent angular radius from a wide-field-of-view navigation sensor, autonomous spacecraft orbit determination was achieved. A stellar aberration measurement model and an active-reference geometric constraint model were formulated, and an Extended Kalman Filter-based autonomous navigation algorithm was developed. On-orbit experiments using a low-Earth-orbit satellite demonstrate a positioning accuracy better than 5 km, validating the feasibility of the proposed approach for high-precision autonomous navigation of deep-space spacecraft under long-range weak-signal conditions.
Dongning Lu, Kai Xiong, Ruike Guo, Yuming Li, Ming Zhao, Lixin Pan, Chao Chen, Li Yuan.
Deep-Space Navigation Based on Stellar Angular Measurements and Planetary Limb Observations of Jupiter.
Journal of Deep Space Exploration, 2026, 13 (4) : 312-322 DOI:10.3724/j.issn.2096-9287.2026.20260033
木星作为太阳系的“行星之王”,拥有复杂而庞大的卫星系统,常被称为“微型太阳系”。木星多颗卫星极可能存在能够孕育生命的冰下海洋,同时,天文学家目前已发现相当比例的系外行星都是类木气态巨行星。因此,木星系统作为天文学家理解太阳系起源与演化、寻找地外生命、“近距离”研究系外行星的一个蓝本,一直是深空探测的热点。迄今为止,已有多达9台深空探测器抵达过木星并开展科学探测活动[1],其中“朱诺号”(Juno)探测器仍活跃在环木星轨道进行科学探测,2030年前后还有“露西号”(Lucy) 、木星冰卫星探测器(JUpiter ICy moons Explorer,JUICE)、“欧罗巴快帆”(Europa Clipper)等3台美国及欧洲探测器先后飞抵木星附近对木星的特洛伊(Trojan)小行星、木星的冰卫星(木卫二、木卫三以及木卫四)开展科学探测[1]。为提升中国深空探测的科学技术水平,为人类太空探索事业贡献中国智慧,中国在火星、近地小行星探测任务之后进一步规划了面向木星及其卫星的科学探测任务[2]。然而,木星系统环境恶劣,且距离地球可达6个天文单位(Astronomical Unit,AU),单程信号延迟 50 min以上,地面测控已难以实现对探测器的实时干预。尽管中国已经具备了木星探测器的跟踪测量能力[3],但目前仍难以达到美国国家航空航天局(National Aeronautics and Space Administration,NASA)、欧洲航天局(European Space Agency,ESA)的深空精密测控水平[4]。因此,为确保木星探测任务的顺利完成,参考“天问一号”火星探测器的成功经验[5],中国木星探测器应具备千米级自主导航能力[6]。
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The Author(s) 2026. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).