• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.309-316
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• 2013

Since the solar activity, one of the factors influencing on lunar communication systems, is to reach its maximum occurring at 11-year solar cycle in autumn 2013, the solar burst frequency and strength are expected to increase. The solar burst has an effect on earth magnetosphere and causes malfunction, loss of communication, and breakdown of various types of satellites and probes. These problems give rise to huge economic and physical loss. Therefore, we should analyze the effect of solar burst on lunar communications and minimize the expected loss. In this paper, we perform the analysis of the link model and link performance between a land station and a lunar orbiter under the solar burst for orbiter's survivability and stable communication channel operations.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.203-216
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• 2011

To prepare for a future Korean lunar orbiter mission, semi-optimal lunar capture orbits using finite thrust are designed and analyzed. Finite burn delta-V losses during lunar capture sequence are also analyzed by comparing those with values derived with impulsive thrusts in previous research. To design a hypothetical lunar capture sequence, two different intermediate capture orbits having orbital periods of about 12 hours and 3.5 hours are assumed, and final mission operation orbit around the Moon is assumed to be 100 km altitude with 90 degree of inclination. For the performance of the on-board thruster, three different performances (150 N with $I_{sp}$ of 200 seconds, 300 N with $I_{sp}$ of 250 seconds, 450 N with $I_{sp}$ of 300 seconds) are assumed, to provide a broad range of estimates of delta-V losses. As expected, it is found that the finite burn-arc sweeps almost symmetric orbital portions with respect to the perilune vector to minimize the delta-Vs required to achieve the final orbit. In addition, a difference of up to about 2% delta-V can occur during the lunar capture sequences with the use of assumed engine configurations, compared to scenarios with impulsive thrust. However, these delta-V losses will differ for every assumed lunar explorer's on-board thrust capability. Therefore, at the early stage of mission planning, careful consideration must be made while estimating mission budgets, particularly if the preliminary mission studies were assumed using impulsive thrust. The results provided in this paper are expected to lead to further progress in the design field of Korea's lunar orbiter mission, particularly the lunar capture sequences using finite thrust.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.55-62
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• 2011

The precise orbit determination (POD) of low earth orbiter (LEO) has complied with its required positioning accuracy by the double-differencing of observations between International GNSS Service (IGS) and LEO to eliminate the common clock error of the global positioning system (GPS) satellites and receiver. Using this method, we also have achieved the 1 m positioning accuracy of Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite (KOMPSAT)-2. However double-differencing POD has huge load of processing the global network of lots of ground stations because LEO turns around the Earth with rapid velocity. And both the centimeter accuracy and the near real time (NRT) processing have been needed in the LEO POD applications--atmospheric sounding or urgent image processing--as well as the surveying. An alternative to differential GPS for high accuracy NRT POD is precise point positioning (PPP) to use measurements from one satellite receiver only, to replace the broadcast navigation message with precise post processed values from IGS, and to have phase measurements of dual frequency GPS receiver. PPP can obtain positioning accuracy comparable to that of differential positioning. KOMPSAT-5 has a precise dual frequency GPS flight receiver (integrated GPS and occultation receiver, IGOR) to satisfy the accuracy requirements of 20 cm positioning accuracy for highly precise synthetic aperture radar image processing and to collect GPS radio occultation measurements for atmospheric sounding. In this paper we obtained about 3-5 cm positioning accuracies using the real GPS data of the Gravity Recover and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites loaded the Blackjack receiver, a predecessor of IGOR. And it is important to reduce the latency of orbit determination processing in the NRT POD. This latency is determined as the volume of GPS measurements. Thus changing the sampling intervals, we show their latency to able to reduce without the precision degradation as the assessment of their precision.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.139-151
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• 2017

This paper presents an overview of deep space orbit determination software (DSODS), as well as validation and verification results on its event prediction capabilities. DSODS was developed in the MATLAB object-oriented programming environment to support the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) mission. DSODS has three major capabilities: celestial event prediction for spacecraft, orbit determination with deep space network (DSN) tracking data, and DSN tracking data simulation. To achieve its functionality requirements, DSODS consists of four modules: orbit propagation (OP), event prediction (EP), data simulation (DS), and orbit determination (OD) modules. This paper explains the highest-level data flows between modules in event prediction, orbit determination, and tracking data simulation processes. Furthermore, to address the event prediction capability of DSODS, this paper introduces OP and EP modules. The role of the OP module is to handle time and coordinate system conversions, to propagate spacecraft trajectories, and to handle the ephemerides of spacecraft and celestial bodies. Currently, the OP module utilizes the General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) as a third-party software component for high-fidelity deep space propagation, as well as time and coordinate system conversions. The role of the EP module is to predict celestial events, including eclipses, and ground station visibilities, and this paper presents the functionality requirements of the EP module. The validation and verification results show that, for most cases, event prediction errors were less than 10 millisec when compared with flight proven mission analysis tools such as GMAT and Systems Tool Kit (STK). Thus, we conclude that DSODS is capable of predicting events for the KPLO in real mission applications.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.366-372
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• 2013

Korean lunar explorer will be launched by korean launcher KSLV-2 in the 2020s in accordance with national space development strategy. Korean lunar explorer is composed of two unmanned orbiter and lander and should be developed as small size and light weight within 550kg of launch mass due to launcher's loading capability. A structure of lunar explorer is required to have sufficient stiffness and strength under launch and operational environment as well as to accommodate mission equipment. This paper describes the result of a preliminary study on structural model design for korean lunar explorer.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.331-342
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• 2017

To ensure the successful launch of the Korea pathfinder lunar orbiter (KPLO) mission, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) is now performing extensive trajectory design and analysis studies. From the trajectory design perspective, it is crucial to prepare contingency trajectory options for the failure of the first lunar brake or the failure of the first lunar orbit insertion (LOI) maneuver. As part of the early phase trajectory design and analysis activities, the required time of flight (TOF) and associated delta-V magnitudes for each recovery maneuver (RM) to recover the KPLO mission trajectory are analyzed. There are two typical trajectory recovery options, direct recovery and low energy recovery. The current work is focused on the direct recovery option. Results indicate that a quicker execution of the first RM after the failure of the first LOI plays a significant role in saving the magnitudes of the RMs. Under the conditions of the extremely tight delta-V budget that is currently allocated for the KPLO mission, it is found that the recovery of the KPLO without altering the originally planned mission orbit (a 100 km circular orbit) cannot be achieved via direct recovery options. However, feasible recovery options are suggested within the boundaries of the currently planned delta-V budget. By changing the shape and orientation of the recovered final mission orbit, it is expected that the KPLO mission may partially pursue its scientific mission after successful recovery, though it will be limited.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.463-469
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• 2010

Since MOLA(Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter) data, which provides altimetry data for Mars, does not cover the whole Mars area, image matching with MOC imagery should be implemented for the generation of DEM. However, automatic image matching is difficult because of insufficient features and low contrast. In this paper, we present the area based semi-automatic image matching algorithm with MOC-NA(Mars Orbiter Camera ? Narrow Angle) imagery. To accomplish this, seed points describing conjugate points are manually added for the stereo imagery, and interesting points are automatically produced by using such seed points. Produced interesting points being used as initial conjugate points, area based image matching is implemented. For the points which fail to match, the locations of initial conjugate points are recalculated by using matched six points and image matching process is re-implemented. The quality assessment by reversing the role of target and search image shows 97.5 % of points were laid within one pixel absolute difference.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.323-333
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• 2016

In this study, the uncertainty requirements for orbit, attitude, and burn performance were estimated and analyzed for the execution of the $1^{st}$ lunar orbit insertion (LOI) maneuver of the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) mission. During the early design phase of the system, associate analysis is an essential design factor as the $1^{st}$ LOI maneuver is the largest burn that utilizes the onboard propulsion system; the success of the lunar capture is directly affected by the performance achieved. For the analysis, the spacecraft is assumed to have already approached the periselene with a hyperbolic arrival trajectory around the moon. In addition, diverse arrival conditions and mission constraints were considered, such as varying periselene approach velocity, altitude, and orbital period of the capture orbit after execution of the $1^{st}$ LOI maneuver. The current analysis assumed an impulsive LOI maneuver, and two-body equations of motion were adapted to simplify the problem for a preliminary analysis. Monte Carlo simulations were performed for the statistical analysis to analyze diverse uncertainties that might arise at the moment when the maneuver is executed. As a result, three major requirements were analyzed and estimated for the early design phase. First, the minimum requirements were estimated for the burn performance to be captured around the moon. Second, the requirements for orbit, attitude, and maneuver burn performances were simultaneously estimated and analyzed to maintain the $1^{st}$ elliptical orbit achieved around the moon within the specified orbital period. Finally, the dispersion requirements on the B-plane aiming at target points to meet the target insertion goal were analyzed and can be utilized as reference target guidelines for a mid-course correction (MCC) maneuver during the transfer. More detailed system requirements for the KPLO mission, particularly for the spacecraft bus itself and for the flight dynamics subsystem at the ground control center, are expected to be prepared and established based on the current results, including a contingency trajectory design plan.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.471-482
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• 2019

The mission of the high-resolution camera for the lunar exploration is to provide 3D topographic information. It enables us to find the appropriate landing site or to control accurate landing by the short distance stereo image in real-time. In this paper, the ground verification and analysis system using the multi-application stereo camera to develop the high-resolution camera for the lunar exploration are proposed. The mission test items and test plans for the mission requirement are provided and the test results are analyzed by the ground verification and analysis system. For the realistic simulation for the lunar orbiter, the target area that has similar characteristics with the real lunar surface is chosen and the aircraft flight is planned to take image of the area. The DEM is extracted from the stereo image and compose three dimensional results. The high-resolution camera mission requirements for the lunar exploration are verified and the ground data analysis system is developed.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.293-299
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• 2023

The Wide-Angle Polarimetric Camera (PolCam) is installed on the Korea's lunar orbiter, Danuri, which launched on August 5, 2022. The mission objectives of PolCam are to construct photometric maps at a wavelength of 336 nm and polarization maps at 461 and 748 nm, with a phase angle range of 0°-135° and a spatial resolution of less than 100 m. PolCam is an imager using the push-broom method and has two cameras, Cam 1 and Cam 2, with a viewing angle of 45° to the right and left of the spacecraft's direction of orbit. We conducted performance tests in a laboratory setting before installing PolCam's flight model on the spacecraft. We analyzed the CCD's dark current, flat-field frame, spot size, and light flux. The dark current was obtained during thermal / vacuum test with various temperatures and the flat-field frame data was also obtained with an integrating sphere and tungsten light bulb. We describe the calibration method and results in this study.