Estimating Harmonic Coefficients of Asteroids through LiAISON Navigation

2026-08-06

AI Summary

This study addresses the challenge of accurately estimating gravitational perturbations and spacecraft states in near-binary asteroid systems using only range and Doppler measurements. To overcome this limitation, the work extends the LiAISON navigation approach—previously limited to weaker perturbation environments—to strong-gravity scenarios such as the Vesta–Ceres system. A novel joint estimation framework is proposed, integrating Multiple Model Adaptive Estimation (MMAE) with the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) to simultaneously identify the spacecraft’s state and the harmonic coefficients of the gravitational field. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that the method achieves high-precision, consistent estimates of position, velocity, and gravitational perturbations without requiring additional observations, thereby significantly enhancing deep-space autonomous navigation capabilities.

Abstract

This paper evaluates the Linked Autonomous Interplanetary Satellite Orbit Navigation (LiAISON) method in near two-body asteroid systems. While LiAISON's usefulness has been proven in multibody environments such as the cislunar region, the application of a two-body system with gravity perturbations has not been sufficiently demonstrated. Vesta and Ceres are good candidates to test LiAISON, because the asteroids have sufficiently strong perturbations to use LiAISON method. The study utilizes a Multi-Model Adaptive Estimation (MMAE) framework integrated with Unscented Kalman Filters (UKF) to estimate the spacecraft states and perturbations using only range and range rate measurements. Results from the Monte Carlo analysis indicate that the proposed framework makes accurate and consistent estimates of position, velocity, and the perturbations for cases of Ceres and Vesta.

Problem

• Harmonic Coefficients
• Asteroids
• LiAISON Navigation
• Gravity Perturbations
• Two-body System

Innovation

• LiAISON
• MMAE
• Unscented Kalman Filter
• harmonic coefficients
• asteroid navigation