[Spice_discussion] Problem generating station ephemerides
William Thompson
William.T.Thompson at nasa.gov
Fri Jun 11 11:10:59 PDT 2010
I tried using the ITRF93 frame with the earth_000101_100901_100610.bpc PCK file.
It made virtually no differences in the calculated azimuth and elevation, and
a very slight but insignificant difference in the calculated Doppler velocity.
Thanks anyway,
Bill
Bogdan Nicula wrote:
> I'm not an expert, but I believe you may achieve higher accuracy by using the ITRF93 frame and loading some binary Earth PCK files from
> ftp://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/naif/generic_kernels/pck
>
> Best regards,
> Bogdan
>
> On 11 Jun 2010, at 18:04, William Thompson wrote:
>
>> SPICE experts:
>>
>> I generate ephemerides of the two STEREO spacecraft for volunteer antenna stations collecting low-rate beacon telemetry outside of the normal DSN contacts. Recently it's come to my attention that the ephemerides that I generate may be off by as much as 0.1 degrees, mainly in the direction of ecliptic longitude. I would like to go over the procedure that I use to see if anybody can suggest what the problem might be.
>>
>> I will use as an example a station in Bochum, Germany, because this can be directly compared to ephemerides generated by the JPL Horizons website at
>>
>> http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi
>>
>> This website generates the following ephemeris entries for the STEREO Behind spacecraft:
>>
>> Date__(UT)__HR:MN Azi_(a-appr)_Elev delta deldot
>>
>> 2010-Jun-18 15:24 *m 179.5797 52.2818 1.17021276739671 0.8852056
>> 2010-Jun-18 15:25 *t 179.9768 52.2822 1.17021312270827 0.8864513
>> 2010-Jun-18 15:26 *m 180.3738 52.2815 1.17021347851951 0.8876971
>>
>> However, the ephemeris entries that I generate are slightly different.
>>
>> Date/Time Azimuth Elevation Doppler
>> (UTC) (deg.) (deg.) (km/s)
>>
>> 2010-06-18T15:24:00.000 179.48305 52.282704 0.88506974
>> 2010-06-18T15:25:00.000 179.88011 52.283347 0.88631548
>> 2010-06-18T15:26:00.000 180.27718 52.282909 0.88756124
>>
>> You can see that the azimuth values are about 0.1 degrees smaller in my calculation than in the Horizons calculation, while the azimuth values are about the same. Values near maximum elevation are shown to highlight the direction of the error.
>>
>> The first question to ask is whether the difference is due to different spacecraft ephemerides being used in the two calculations. In fact, there is a slight difference in the predictive ephemerides being used, but this seems to only change the calculation in the last signficant digit. Here's a complete list of all the loaded kernels in my calculation.
>>
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/gen/naif0009.tls
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/gen/de405.bsp
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/gen/pck00008.tpc
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/gen/heliospheric.tf
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/gen/stereo_rtn.tf
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/sclk/ahead/ahead_science_06.sclk
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/sclk/behind/behind_science_06.sclk
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/epm/ahead/ahead_2009_050_definitive_predict.epm.bsp
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/epm/ahead/ahead_2010_155_01.epm.bsp
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/epm/behind/behind_2009_049_definitive_predict.epm.bsp
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/epm/behind/behind_2010_148_01.epm.bsp
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/depm/ahead/ahead_2006_350_01.depm.bsp
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/depm/ahead/ahead_2008_037_01.depm.bsp
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/depm/ahead/ahead_2008_078_01.depm.bsp
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/depm/ahead/ahead_2010_155_01.depm.bsp
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/depm/behind/behind_2007_021_01.depm.bsp
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/depm/behind/behind_2007_053_01.depm.bsp
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/depm/behind/behind_2008_037_01.depm.bsp
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/depm/behind/behind_2008_078_01.depm.bsp
>> /solarsoft/stereo/gen/data/spice/depm/behind/behind_2010_148_01.depm.bsp
>>
>> The .depm.bsp files are definitive ephemeris files based on measurements, and do not cover future dates such as 18-June-2010.
>>
>> The procedure I use to generate the station ephemerides is as follows. First, I generate a frame definition kernel from the geodetic coordinates of the station. The coordinates of the Bochum station are 7°11'33.4''E, 51°25'37.0''N, and with an altitude of 207.33 m. My frame definition file is as follows:
>>
>> \begindata
>>
>> FRAME_BOCHUM_TOPO = 1451007
>> FRAME_1451007_NAME = 'BOCHUM_TOPO'
>> FRAME_1451007_CLASS = 4
>> FRAME_1451007_CLASS_ID = 1451007
>> FRAME_1451007_CENTER = 399
>>
>> TKFRAME_1451007_RELATIVE = 'IAU_EARTH'
>> TKFRAME_1451007_SPEC = 'ANGLES'
>> TKFRAME_1451007_UNITS = 'DEGREES'
>> TKFRAME_1451007_AXES = ( 3, 2, 3)
>> TKFRAME_1451007_ANGLES = ( -7.192566, -38.57301, 180.00 )
>>
>> \begintext
>>
>> Therefore, my first question is whether there's something subtly wrong about the way I define the frame file.
>>
>> Next, I calculate the position of the spacecraft in the Earth's reference frame using the following command:
>>
>> cspice_spkezr, sc, et, 'IAU_EARTH', 'lt+s', 'Earth', state, ltime
>>
>> I considered whether that should be 'xlt+s', but that didn't seem to make much difference.
>>
>> Next, I calculate the position of the spacecraft relative to the station via the following commands:
>>
>> cspice_bodvar, 399, 'RADII' , radii
>> flat = (radii[0]-radii[2]) / radii[0]
>> cspice_georec, lon_r, lat_r, alt, radii[0], flat, origin
>> origin = [origin, 0, 0, 0]
>> state = state - origin
>>
>> Next, I convert to the station frame
>>
>> cspice_sxform, 'IAU_EARTH', strupcase(station) + '_TOPO', et, xform
>> state = transpose(xform) # state
>>
>> Finally, I convert into azimuth and elevation
>>
>> cspice_reclat, state[0:2], distance, azimuth, elevation
>> azimuth = -azimuth * (180.d0 / !dpi)
>> elevation = elevation * (180.d0 / !dpi)
>> if azimuth lt 0 then azimuth = azimuth + 360.d0
>>
>> The complete code can be found at
>>
>> http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/solarsoft/stereo/ssc/idl/spice/ssc_write_station.pro
>>
>> I'd appreciate any suggestions that might help explain the 0.1 degree discrepancy.
>>
>> Thank you,
>>
>> Bill Thompson
>>
>> --
>> William Thompson
>> NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
>> Code 671
>> Greenbelt, MD 20771
>> USA
>>
>> 301-286-2040
>> William.T.Thompson at nasa.gov
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
--
William Thompson
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Code 671
Greenbelt, MD 20771
USA
301-286-2040
William.T.Thompson at nasa.gov
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