JMAPS Observations Planning Simulator
Abstract
The Joint Milli-Arcsecond Pathfinder Survey (JMAPS) cataloging mission will provide position, proper motion, parallax, photometry and spectrophotometry for bright stars with much greater accuracy over existing catalogs. In order to get most from the mission, a JMAPS observations planning simulator (JOPS) is under development in the United States Naval Observatory. The reported version of JOPS is capable of simulating JMAPS orbital, boresight and field of view (FOV) motions in various observing modes subject to pointing, slew, battery, and other mission constraints. JOPS generates a system of reference cells that cover the entire sky without gaps and serve as a base for observations planning and accounting. To estimate the efficiency of observations, the simulator calculates various metric properties such as the number of FOV hits per cell and the number of cells inside the FOV, and respective distribution functions. Finally, JOPS computes a detailed list of observability of sky cells as a function of the year's week, which can be used for both long-term and short-term planning of JMAPS observations. One of the main applications of the simulator will be finding optimal time allocations for observing modes to meet the mission requirements.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #219
- Pub Date:
- January 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AAS...21924121Z