Developments in Spacecraft Doppler tracking software (SDtracker)

Abstract

Arising from software developed for the 2005 Huygens probe landing, the first official version of SDtracker was used for the 2008 initial detection test of the ESA's Venus Express (VEX) space mission. In the 13 years since, SDtracker has been regularly updated to accommodate different radio telescope configurations, newer VLBI data formats, different hardware architectures, and more. Recently, a major upgrade was released to address a number of performance and usability issues. This newer version has simplified the installation process, removed or updated dependencies, and optimised the code. Herein, the features, scientific achievements and future of the improved software are discussed.