Design and performance of a Martian autonomous navigation system based on a smallsat constellation

• Main Authors: Molli, S, Durante, D, Boscagli, G, Cascioli, G, Racioppa, P, Alessi, E. M, Simonetti, S, Vigna, L, Iess, L
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 03-12-2022
• Subjects: Physics - Space Physics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2212.01647

Deciphering the genesis and evolution of the Martian polar caps can provide
crucial understanding of Mars' climate system. The growing scientific interest
for the exploration of Mars at high latitudes, and the need of minimizing the
resources onboard landers and rovers, motivates the need for adequate
navigation support from orbit. We propose a novel concept based on a
constellation that can support autonomous navigation of different kind of users
devoted to scientific investigations of those regions. We study two
constellations, that differ mainly for the semi-major axis, composed of 5 small
satellites (based on the SmallSats design being developed in Argotec), offering
dedicated coverage of the Mars polar regions. We focus on the architecture of
the inter-satellite links (ISL), the key elements providing both ephemerides
and time synchronization for the broadcasting of the navigation message. Our
concept is based on suitably configured coherent links, able to suppress the
adverse effects of on-board clock instabilities and to provide excellent
range-rate accuracies between the constellation's nodes. The data quality
allows attaining good positioning performance for both constellations with a
largely autonomous system. Indeed, we show that ground support can be heavily
reduced by employing an ISL communication architecture.