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:
Sep. 14, 2010
Filed:
Sep. 14, 2004
Horst-dieter Fischer, Unterhaching, DE;
Joachim Chemnitz, Munich, DE;
Horst-Dieter Fischer, Unterhaching, DE;
Joachim Chemnitz, Munich, DE;
Astrium GmbH, Munich, DE;
Abstract
In a method for determining the position of a spacecraft based on vector determinations, a direction vector is measured in a body-fixed coordinate system; a reference direction vector is determined within a reference coordinate system based on the path position of the spacecraft and an orbit model; the overall spin vector of the spacecraft is determined within the body-fixed coordinate system; and a reference overall spin vector of the spacecraft is determined within a reference coordinate system by time propagation of known initial values of the overall spin of the spacecraft or by time tracking of a reference model. The position of the spacecraft is determined based on the four vectors.