An Autonomous Passive Navigation Method for Nanosatellite Exploration of the Asteroid Belt

TL;DR

This paper presents an autonomous passive navigation method for nanosatellites exploring the asteroid belt, enabling ephemeris estimation using line-of-sight measurements and Extended Kalman Filtering without prior ephemeris data.

Contribution

It introduces a novel autonomous navigation technique for nanosatellites that estimates their position relative to asteroids without prior ephemeris knowledge.

Findings

Successful ephemeris estimation demonstrated in simulations

Enhanced navigation accuracy with EKF-based method

Applicable to small spacecraft with limited sensors

Abstract

There are more than 750,000 asteroids identified in the main belt. These asteroids are diverse in composition and size. Some of these asteroids can be traced back to the early solar system and can provide insight into the origins of the so-lar system, origins of Earth and origins of life. Apart from being important tar-gets for science exploration, asteroids are strategically placed due to their low-gravity well, making it low-cost to transport material onto and way from them. They hold valuable resources such as water, carbon, metals including iron, nickel and platinum to name a few. These resources maybe used in refueling depots for interplanetary spacecraft and construction material for future space colonies, communication relays and space telescopes. The costs of getting to the main asteroid belt, combined with large numbers of objects to be explored encourage the application of small spacecraft swarms. The size and capability of the result-ing nano-spacecraft can make detection from Earth difficult. This paper dis-cusses a method by which a spacecraft can establish ephemeris autonomously using line of sight measurements to nearby asteroids with Extended Kalman Filtering techniques, without knowing accurate ephemeris of either the asteroids or the spacecraft initially. A description of the filter implementation is followed by examples of resultant performance.