Preliminary Orbit Determination

L. G. Taff, B. Belkin, G. Schweiter, K. Sommar

Abstract:	We treat the problem of intercontinental ballistic missile re-entry vehicle orbit determination from incomplete passive (i.e., angles-only) or active (i.e., distance plus angles) information. We utilize our knowledge regarding launch location and time and impact location and time to complete the computation of an orbital element set. In addition, we can construct a good estimate of the variance of the key quantity in the angles-only case; namely the computed topocentric distance. We enlarge on this type of observation/information situation to include a complete discussion of single-point differential correction.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1989) June 27 - 29, 1989 Alexandria, VA
Pages:	37 - 41
Cite this article:	Taff, L. G., Belkin, B., Schweiter, G., Sommar, K., "Preliminary Orbit Determination," Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1989), Alexandria, VA, June 1989, pp. 37-41.
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