[Spice_discussion] Writer's remorse

Nat Bachman nathaniel.bachman at jpl.nasa.gov
Thu Sep 2 21:24:45 PDT 2010


Folks,

Ugh, the message I sent to Trent is full of typos, format
errors, and small inaccuracies.

A few clarifications, just so nobody cuts and pastes my
errors:

   1) "Any noise in the data" refers only to the input state
      passed to OSCELT.

   2) Use of "kinematic" in the phrase "Kinematic extrapolation"
      is debatable and hence should be avoided. I was trying
      to emphasize that we use a formula that might have no
      connection to reality (for example, you can use OSCELT
      to model a hyperbolic asteroid flyby, using the asteroid as the
      center of motion). But one also could say that the model
      is dynamic, even if inaccurate.

   3) The concept of "elements being close to singularities"
      is an instance of sloppy writing and bad math. The states that
      map to those elements may be close to singularities.

   4) "Smoothing" elements and fitting elements to a set of
      observations are two different things. Both can lead
      to improved global accuracy of elements.

There's a sentence without a final period.
The question mark goes inside the quotation. :)

  -Nat

Nathaniel.Bachman at jpl.nasa.gov







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