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1. Introduction
With the further development of space remote sensing instruments and the continuous improvement of quantitative application requirements of remote sensing products, the high-precision calibration of space remote sensing instruments has become increasingly important and necessary. Among the proposed calibration methods [1], compared with laboratory calibration before launch and on-orbit alternative calibration, onboard calibration can directly reflect the actual situation of the remote sensing instrument after entering orbit. It is an important means to monitor the long-term performance changes of remote sensing instruments, and it is also the basis for quantitatively obtaining on orbit performance information of remote sensing instruments and correcting on orbit telemetric data [2].
In-orbit calibration system is usually divided into in-orbit internal calibration system and in-orbit external calibration system. The in-orbit calibration system can only monitor part of the optical system and increase the combined uncertainty of the final results [3, 4]. The sun is a stable radiation source. The method of using the sun as the standard light source for onboard calibration has high calibration accuracy and can make up for the shortcomings of the built-in standard light source which is easy to decay for a long time [5–8].
Because the incident angle of the sun changes with the seasons and the orbit parameters of the satellite, and the satellite attitude adjustment may also be needed during the calibration, it is necessary to grasp the timing of the sun calibration in advance, that is, the angle prediction of the sun. Usually, space remote sensing instruments use the time of the Julian day and orbit parameters to calculate the angle of the sun [9, 10]. Due to the limited computing resources of space remote sensing instruments, orbit parameters cannot be predicted or can only be predicted in a short time [11]. On the premise of considering both accuracy and simplification, this paper presents a high-precision solar angle prediction method for space remote sensing instruments.
2. Materials and Methods
The flow chart of the method for the angle prediction of the sun proposed in this paper is shown in Figure 1. The specific steps are as follows. (1) According to the current time broadcast by the current satellite platform (
[figure omitted; refer to PDF]
The vsop87 planetary theory consists of six tables of periodic coefficients. The vsop87D table can directly calculate the ecliptic longitude (
We use the date broadcast on the satellite platform to calculate the Julian day
Suppose that the three coefficients
Using the same method to calculate the periodic coefficient table of the earth’s ecliptic latitude in the heliocentric coordinate system and the periodic coefficient table of the distance between the earth and the sun, the earth’s ecliptic latitude in the heliocentric coordinate system (
The calculation method of ecliptic longitude in geocentric coordinate system (
The calculation method of ecliptic latitude in the geocentric coordinate system (
Nutation correction is first used to calculate the apparent longitude and latitude. Nutation can be divided into nutation in longitude (
The formulas for calculating the five basic angular distances are as follows.
Mean elongation of the Moon from the Sun
Mean anomaly of the Sun (Earth)
Mean anomaly of the Moon
Moon’s argument of latitude
Longitude of the ascending node of the Moon’s mean orbit on the ecliptic, measured from the mean equinox of the date
The method of calculating the angle
The nutation in longitude can be obtained by accumulating the value
The method of calculating the nutation in obliquity according to the amplitude
In addition to nutation correction, aberration correction is also needed, and the formula is as follows.
The apparent longitude
The formula for calculating the apparent right ascension and apparent declination of the sun is as follows.
In Formula (15),
According to the application scenario of the method in this paper, the apparent right ascension of the sun is further corrected in order to improve the accuracy, and the correction method is as follows.
The calculated
2.2. Instantaneous Root Prediction of Satellite Orbit and Coordinate System Transformation
At present, the prediction methods of instantaneous root of earth satellite orbit are mainly divided into numerical method and analytical method. These methods need too much resources for a single remote sensing instrument on the satellite. Therefore, on the premise of considering both accuracy and simplification, this paper proposes a simple orbital instantaneous root prediction method.
In the case of two-body problem, the satellite in orbit is only affected by the gravity of the central celestial body. In the orbital instantaneous root, except that the true anomaly
[figure omitted; refer to PDF]
It can be seen from Figure 3 that the relationship between the eccentric anomaly
The relationship between the mean anomaly
The relationship between the true anomaly
Among the perturbations of LEO satellites, the earth perturbation
In Formula (22),
In Formula (23),
Formulas (19)–(23) can be used to predict the instantaneous root of the orbit at any time according to the instantaneous root of the orbit at the starting time. Then, the transformation matrix from the geocentric inertial coordinate system to the orbital coordinate system at the prediction time is obtained as follows.
In Formula (24),
2.3. Calculation of Satellite Correction Matrix
The
When the satellite is in orbit, it faces the problems of space environment interference, flexible accessory jitter, and slow time-varying moment of inertia, so the attitude angle of the satellite is unpredictable. The existing methods of satellite attitude determination can accurately estimate the satellite direction relative to the reference system with the help of the measurement information of the attitude sensor. The methods of satellite attitude control, such as active three-axis stability, gravity gradient stability, and spin stability, can ensure high control accuracy and keep the satellite attitude in a stable state. For the application scenario of the method proposed in this paper, the attitude stability mode of the satellite is three-axis stability, and the three-axis pointing accuracy is not greater than 0.15° (3σ), inertial attitude three-axis measurement accuracy is not greater than 0.006° (3σ), and three-axis attitude stability is not greater than 0.006°/s (3σ). According to Formula (25), the error caused by attitude stability is the order of magnitude of 10-4, so it can be considered that the satellite attitude will not change in the predicted time (unless the change command is injected). Therefore, the satellite attitude correction matrix at the current time is used as the satellite attitude correction matrix at the prediction time.
2.4. Angle Prediction of the Sun in the Coordinate System of the Instrument Body
From Sections 2.1 to 2.3, the sun vector
3. Results and Discussion
3.1. Results
In order to verify the accuracy of this method, the solar incident angles calculated by this method are compared with those calculated by STK (Satellite Tool Kit). The error of STK in short-time prediction is the order of magnitude of 10-5, and its prediction error will increase with the increase of prediction time. However, as a mature orbit prediction tool, STK has been widely used, and the error of STK simulation is small, which has little impact on the error between the results of this method and STK simulation results. Therefore, STK simulation results are still used to verify the correctness of the method proposed in this paper.
The applicable scenario of the method proposed in this paper is the satellite carried by the remote sensing instrument under development, so the selected orbit is the orbit of the satellite. The sun synchronous orbit with 836 km orbit height and 9 : 30 : 00 descent intersection time is simulated. The starting time of solar angle forecast is summer solstice, that is, UTCG 2020/06/22 00 : 00 : 00, and the forecast duration is 125 days. Since the period of solar calibration is not fixed, when verifying the results of this method, try to increase the duration of prediction. Therefore, the prediction time is selected as 125 days, which includes the accuracy of different times of short period and long period, so as to verify the error of the method proposed in this paper in different durations.
Without considering the satellite attitude, the method described in Section 2 is used to calculate the
[figure omitted; refer to PDF]
As shown in Figures 4–6, the errors of
4. Discussion
The error of this method in calculating the solar right ascension and declination and variation of the satellite coordinate system is very small, and the main error comes from the prediction of the orbital instantaneous root. In this paper, only
5. Conclusions
In order to grasp the timing of solar calibration in advance, a simple method of high-precision solar angle prediction for space remote sensing instruments is proposed in this paper. This method considers both accuracy and simplification. This method is used to predict the solar angle of sun synchronous orbit in the satellite body coordinate system and compared with the STK simulation results. The results show that the prediction error of the solar vector is less than ±0.003° in 125 days. It can meet the requirements of solar angle accuracy for on-orbit sun calibration. At the same time, it provides a reference for other space remote sensing instruments on-orbit solar angle prediction.
Acknowledgments
This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 62005268).
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Abstract
In order to grasp the timing of sun calibration in advance, this paper introduces a high-precision method to predict the solar angle by using the current broadcast time and orbital instantaneous root of the satellite platform. By calculating the sun’s apparent right ascension and apparent declination, the conversion matrix from the geocentric inertial coordinate system to the orbital coordinate system, and the satellite attitude correction matrix, the sun vector in the satellite body coordinate system is obtained. This method is used to predict the sun angle of a sun synchronous orbit in the satellite coordinate system, and the prediction results are compared with the STK simulation results. The results show that the sun angle prediction error of this method is less than ±0.003°. It can meet the requirements of on-orbit solar calibration. The main error sources in the prediction method are analysed.
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1 Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130033, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101408, China
2 Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130033, China