Abstract
Einstein’s theory of general relativity is playing an increasingly important role in fields such as interplanetary navigation, astrometry, and metrology. Modern spacecraft and interplanetary probe prediction and estimation platforms employ a perturbed Newtonian framework, supplemented with the Einstein-Infeld-Hoffmann n-body equations of motion. While time in Newtonian mechanics is formally universal, the accuracy of modern radiometric tracking systems necessitate linear corrections via increasingly complex and error-prone post-Newtonian techniques—to account for light deflection due to the solar system bodies. With flagship projects such as the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission now operating at unprecedented levels of accuracy, we believe the standard corrected Newtonian paradigm is approaching its limits in terms of complexity. In this paper, we employ a novel prototype software, General Relativistic Accelerometer-based Propagation Environment, to reconstruct the Cassini cruise-phase trajectory during its first gravitational wave experiment in a fully relativistic framework. The results presented herein agree with post-processed trajectory information obtained from NASA’s SPICE kernels at the order of centimetres.
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge a helpful discussion with Prof. Sergei Kopeikin regarding the Orbit Determination Program. JO’L acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav) (Grant No. CE170100004). JPB was funded by a DAR grant in planetology from the French Space Agency (CNES).
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Joseph O’Leary is a postdoctoral research fellow at The University of Melbourne. Dr. O’Leary received his Ph.D. degree from the University of South Australia in 2019 and subsequently worked as an industry research fellow with the Space Environment Research Centre and EOS Space Systems between 2019 and 2022. His research interests include nonlinear state estimation, interplanetary navigation, and general relativity.
Jean-Pierre Barriot is the director of the Geodesy Observatory of Tahiti. Prof. Barriot received his Ph.D. degree in physics from Montpellier University in 1987 and subsequently worked as a research engineer with the French Space Agency (CNES) from 1989 to 2006. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Geophysics at the University of French Polynesia with research interests across a wide range of topics, including geodesy, planetary orbitography, geodynamics, and solar physics.
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O’Leary, J., Barriot, JP. Reconstructing the cruise-phase trajectory of deep-space probes in a general relativistic framework: An application to the Cassini gravitational wave experiment. Astrodyn 7, 301–314 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42064-023-0160-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42064-023-0160-x