Flight Dynamics and Navigation for Planetary Missions in Korea: Past Efforts, Recent Status, and Future Preparations

Abstract

In spite of a short history of only 30 years in space development, Korea has achieved outstanding space development capabilities, and became the 11th member of the “Space Club” in 2013 by launching its own satellites with its own launch vehicle from a local space center. With the successful development and operation of more than 10 earth-orbiting satellites since 1999, Korea is now rapidly expanding its own aspirations to outer space exploration. Unlike earth-orbiting missions, planetary missions are more demanding of well-rounded technological capabilities, specifically trajectory design, analysis, and navigation. Because of the importance of relevant technologies, the Korean astronautical society devoted significant efforts to secure these basic technologies from the early 2000s. This paper revisits the numerous efforts conducted to date, specifically regarding flight dynamics and navigation technology, to prepare for future upcoming planetary missions in Korea. However, sustained efforts are still required to realize such challenging planetary missions, and efforts to date will significantly advance the relevant Korean technological capabilities.

Performance Analysis of DPSK Optical Communication for LEO-to-Ground Relay Link Via a GEO Satellite

“…The satellite laser ranging station at Geochang (Lim et al 2018) can be used as an OGS: it has a novel, effective, and cost-optimized configuration that allows its transformation into a OGS; moreover, it is equipped with adaptive optics that can reduce the influence of atmospheric turbulence. The GEO relay experiment will contribute to implement deep space optical communication for the future planetary missions planned by Korean (Song et al 2018). In this study, we analyzed the performance of optical inter-satellite links and downlinks in the GEO relay system employing DPSK modulation in terms of link margin, BER, and channel capacity.…”

Observational Strategy for KPLO/PolCam Measurements of the Lunar Surface from Orbit

“…The Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) is scheduled to launch in 2022 July as the first phase of the Korean Lunar Exploration Program (Ju et al 2013). The KPLO will orbit the Moon at an altitude of 100±30 km 4 during the nominal mission of up to 12 months including the commissioning phase (Song et al 2018). The objectives of the KPLO mission are to develop critical technologies for lunar exploration and deep space communications, to scientifically investigate the environment of the Moon, and to realize and validate new space technologies such as space internet.…”

Observational Arc-Length Effect on Orbit Determination for Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter in the Earth-Moon Transfer Phase Using a Sequential Estimation

“…The Earth-Moon Transfer phase of the KPLO consists of a 3.5 phasing loop, which includes two perigee (PM) and Lunar orbit insertion (LOI) maneuvers. Additional details on the KPLO mission and trajectory are reported in the literature (Ju et al 2013;Choi et al 2018;Song et al 2018;Kim et al 2019).…”

“…The most important elements for space navigation are orbit determination (OD) and state prediction capability. To ensure successful flight dynamics operations, KARI designed a dual-simulation engine, consisting of a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) simulation engine and a KARI simulation engine (Song et al 2018). Numerous studies (Song et al 2014;Song et al 2016;Bae et al 2017;Song et al 2017) have discussed development strategies, requirements, burn performances, and contingency designs for the development and implementation of the KPLO FDS.…”