A Laser Altimeter Performance Model and Its Application to BELA

The BepiColombo laser altimeter (BELA) is among the instruments that have been confirmed for flight aboard BepiColombo, which is the European Space Agency's cornerstone mission to the planet Mercury. The harsh environmental conditions around Mercury, accompanied by stringent spacecraft resource...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE transactions on geoscience and remote sensing Vol. 44; no. 11; pp. 3308 - 3319
Main Authors Gunderson, K., Thomas, N., Rohner, M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, NY IEEE 01.11.2006
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects
Altimetry
Amplifiers
Analytical models
Applied geophysics
Architecture
Convergence
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
extraterrestrial exploration
Figure of merit
Instruments
Internal geophysics
Laser altimeters
laser applications
Laser modes
Launches
Mathematical models
Mercury
Mercury (planets)
Missions
modeling
Phase frequency detector
Planets
Resource management
Space missions
Space vehicles
Studies
altitude
models
detection
laser methods
extraterrestrial exploration
modeling
probability
baseline
Mercury Planet
instruments
signal-to-noise ratio
laser applications
altimetry
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Summary:The BepiColombo laser altimeter (BELA) is among the instruments that have been confirmed for flight aboard BepiColombo, which is the European Space Agency's cornerstone mission to the planet Mercury. The harsh environmental conditions around Mercury, accompanied by stringent spacecraft resource limitations, impose challenging constraints on BELA's architecture. To assist with the convergence upon an instrument configuration that can meet experiment requirements within the allocated resource budgets, we have developed a predominantly analytical model of the BELA system performance. The model draws on a diverse set of instrument and environmental parameters to predict signal-to-noise ratios, false detection probabilities (PFDs), and range-measurement uncertainties (sigma z ). The model shows that the baseline instrument is capable of meeting the performance requirements of PFD<0.1 and sigma z <10 m out to altitudes of 1050 km. The PFD is shown to be the critical figure of merit for design considerations. PFD-conserving resource minimization favors transimpedance amplifier bandwidths as low as tens of megahertz. The instrument, the model, and a set of model outputs are described. The BepiColombo payload is scheduled for launch in 2013
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:0196-2892
1558-0644
DOI:10.1109/TGRS.2006.880623