SPACE VEHICLE ATTITUDE DETERMINATION AND SURFACE VESSEL POSITION FIXING: A COMMON ANALYTICAL SOLUTION

Roger L. Mansfield

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	The problem of determining the spin-axis attitude of a spin stabilized spacecraft is approached from a geometrical standpoint, and a method of solution is derived for the case of two independent reference angle measurements. The method is shown to be valid for surface navigation, resulting in a complete, analytical procedure for unambiguously determining the latitude and longitude from two star altitudes. The method is then shown to be applicable to the position-fixing problem of interplanetary navigation, and finally, generalized to determination of the inertial orientation of an arbitrary dextral, orthonormal triad of body axes, from two vector measurements of reference body directions.
Published in:	NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Volume 29, Number 4
Pages:	300 - 305
Cite this article:	Mansfield, Roger L., "SPACE VEHICLE ATTITUDE DETERMINATION AND SURFACE VESSEL POSITION FIXING: A COMMON ANALYTICAL SOLUTION", NAVIGATION: Journal of The Institute of Navigation, Vol. 29, No. 4, Winter 1982-1983, pp. 300-305.
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