ESA’s JUICE End-to-End Orbit Determination Simulation to Calibrate On-Board Accelerometer
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Abstract
The purpose of this work is to determine an in-flight calibration procedure for JUICE’s
on-board accelerometer. Its measurements will be combined with the range and range-rate
observables by 3GM gravity experiment to estimate the Callisto’s gravity field, during its
eleven flybys. The 3GM experiment needs a precise orbit determination to fulfill its scientific
goals, but propellant sloshing would affect this precision. In order to improve the physical
model implemented in the OD software, it is necessary to measure these disturbances using an
accelerometer. The accelerometer’s measurement error model is composed of a random noise,
a bias, a bias rate and a scale factor. This investigation shows that the scale factor does not
affect the estimation of Callisto’s spherical harmonic coefficients in a significant way. On the
other hand, the estimation of bias and bias rate parameters is a difficult process because of
their strong correlation. This work demonstrates that the 3GM scientific goals can be achieved,
but high caution on JUICE’s accelerometer design is necessary. In order to overcome these
difficulties, an in-flight calibration strategy is proposed.