Generalization of a method by Mossotti for initial orbit determination

Abstract

Here we revisit an initial orbit determination method introduced by O. F. Mossotti employing four geocentric sky-plane observations and a linear equation to compute the angular momentum of the observed body. We then extend the method to topocentric observations, yielding a quadratic equation for the angular momentum. The performance of the two versions are compared through numerical tests with synthetic asteroid data using different time intervals between consecutive observations and different astrometric errors. We also show a comparison test with Gauss's method using simulated observations with the expected cadence of the VRO-LSST telescope.

arXiv comment22 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (5)

• LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products
• A Framework for Telescope Schedulers: With Applications to the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
• Orbit Determination with the two-body Integrals. II
• Orbit Determination with the two-body Integrals. III
• Keplerian integrals, elimination theory and identification of very short arcs in a large database of optical observations