Accurate characterization of the noise sources affecting BepiColombo’s radio tracking observables

Accurate characterization of the noise sources affecting BepiColombo’s radio tracking observables

David Bernacchia

Abstract. The ESA mission BepiColombo, nowadays, represents a milestone for the precision levels that can be obtained in the determination of the orbit of a spacecraft. The high accuracy provided by the embedded radio system, together with modern techniques used for the calibration of tropospheric noise, such as the usage of a microwave radiometer, allows to estimate the state of the spacecraft with a very small uncertainty. Doppler measurements collected during the first two Solar Conjunction Experiments performed by BepiColombo have been analyzed in order to understand which are the main sources of residual noise still affecting the data after the calibration process, with the aim of improving the overall calibration procedure itself. The study showed that, even though the usage of radiometers led to a strong reduction of the noise due to the troposphere, the main error source can still be identified in some un-calibrated tropospheric effects. This indicates that the improvement of the overall calibration process strongly relies on the refinement of the method used for tropospheric noise removal.

Keywords
BepiColombo, Radio Science, Calibrations, Tropospheric Delay, Antenna Mechanical Noise

Published online 9/1/2023, 7 pages
Copyright © 2023 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA

Citation: David Bernacchia, Accurate characterization of the noise sources affecting BepiColombo’s radio tracking observables, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 33, pp 334-340, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644902677-49

The article was published as article 49 of the book Aerospace Science and Engineering

Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

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