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MERcury Gravity REcovery and Analysis System (MERGREAS) and its performances from simulated four-way Doppler measurements

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Abstract

The exploration of the planet Mercury requires software applications that can execute Precise Orbit Determination (POD) and estimate dynamic parameter solutions. In this paper, we present MERcury Gravity REcovery and Analysis System (MERGREAS), a new software product that is designed to support the future Chinese Mercury explorations. To validate the software we crosschecked the MERGREAS functionalities against the GEODYN-II. Simulated orbit determination experiments show that the differences between MERGREAS and GEODYN-II in the \(X\), \(Y\), and \(Z\) directions were 0.2, 0.7, and 0.5 m respectively with the arc length of 24 h. The integration interval for both software platforms was 10s. The MERGREAS software can utilize four-way Doppler measurements for spacecraft orbit determination as well as precise positioning of a Mercury lander. In simulations, we show that when the four-way Doppler data are included, the accuracy in Mercury spacecraft orbit determination can reach the centimeter level and the lander positioning accuracy can be refined to decimeter level. Furthermore, when we considered the influence of the Mercury gravity errors, measurement bias, and Mercury orientation model errors in POD with MERGREAS, the errors in the orbiter position ranged as high as 300 meters with a lander position deviation of about 10 meters. The Mercury gravity field solution was improved and the accuracy of the Mercury tidal Love number \(k_{2}\) increased by an order of magnitude when simulated four-way Doppler data were added. The more precise \(k_{2}\) value enhanced the accuracy of the constraints used in internal physical parameters estimation for Mercury. These results provide a reference for future Chinese Mercury exploration missions.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate Prof. Shuanggen Jin from Shanghai Astronomical Observatory to provide advice in this research. We thank the Mr. Stephen C. McClure, a native English speaker and researcher, and Dr. Yiqun Dai from Wuhan University to help polish this paper. The work is supported by National Scientific Foundation of China (U1831132, 41874010, 41804025) and Innovation Group of Natural Fund of Hubei Province (2018CFA087). This work is also supported by the Open Funding of Astro Dynamic Laboratory (No. 2016ADL-DW0103) and the Open Funding of Macau University of Science and Technology (FDCT 119/2017/A3). JPB is funded by a DAR grant in planetology from the French Space Agency (CNES). The GEODYN-II is authorized by GSFC/NASA and we run it in workstation in Shanghai Astronomical Observatory. The numerical calculations of MERGREAS have been done on the supercomputing system in the Supercomputing Center of Wuhan University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, 129 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Jianguo Yan, Shanhong Liu, Xuan Yang, Mao Ye, Weitong Jin, Fei Li & Jean-Pierre Barriot

  2. State Key Laboratory of Astronautic Dynamics, Xi’an Satellite Control Center, Xi’an, 710000, China

    Jianguo Yan

  3. Chinese Antarctic Center of Surveying and Mapping, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China

    Chi Xiao

  4. Observatoire géodésique de Tahiti, BP 6570, 98702, Faa’a, Tahiti, French Polynesia

    Jean-Pierre Barriot

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  1. Jianguo Yan
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Correspondence to Jianguo Yan or Mao Ye.

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Yan, J., Liu, S., Yang, X. et al. MERcury Gravity REcovery and Analysis System (MERGREAS) and its performances from simulated four-way Doppler measurements. Astrophys Space Sci 364, 58 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-019-3548-6

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