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Effective direction measurements for spacecraft attitude: II. Predicted directions

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Your gracious self, embrace but my direction.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) The Winter’s Tale, Act IV, scene iv

Abstract

The predicted directions are examined as effective measurements of spacecraft attitude. It is shown that two linearly independent predicted directions are a sufficient statistic for the attitude, and that these two effective measurements can be chosen to be arbitrary directions as long as they are not parallel or antiparallel. However, the correct implementation of the predicted directions in maximum-likelihood estimation of the attitude is complicated by the form of the covariance matrix for each and their mutual correlation. Thus, the predicted directions, which differ greatly from the equivalent direction measurements presented earlier, are not useful as a practical vehicle for attitude data fusion. Unlike the equivalent directions, the predicted directions are always physically meaningful. Unfortunately, they are also almost physically meaningless, as we shall see. Nonetheless, they are of obvious theoretical interest and worthy of a careful examination. The predicted directions can be shown to be “equivalent” measurements for the TRIAD algorithm.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Acme Spacecraft Company, 13017 Wisteria Drive, Box 328, Germantown, Maryland, 20874, USA

    Malcolm D. Shuster (Director of Research)

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  1. Malcolm D. Shuster
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Correspondence to Malcolm D. Shuster.

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Shuster, M.D. Effective direction measurements for spacecraft attitude: II. Predicted directions. J of Astronaut Sci 55, 479–492 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03256537

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03256537

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