The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 17, 2001
Filed:
Jun. 29, 1999
James W. Wehner, Torrance, CA (US);
Richard B. Sherwood, Palos Verdes Estates, CA (US);
TRW Inc., Redondo Beach, CA (US);
Abstract
A system (,) for determining the ephemeris and attitude for a spacecraft includes ephemeris and attitude determining subsystems (,) that obtain ephemeris data (,) for one or more reference spacecraft crosslinked to the spacecraft. Crosslink sensor pointing information (,) is obtained for the crosslink sensors. The satellite ephemeris and attitude (,) are then calculated with ephemeris and attitude determination algorithms (,) based on the ephemeris data (,) and crosslink sensor pointing information (,). Other available information, such as stored results of previous measurements and calculations, time (,), spacecraft attitude (,), information from non-crosslink sensors and ranging information may be used to enhance the accuracy or decrease the complexity of the ephemeris calculations.