KALMAN-TYPE FILTER FOR COMMUNICATION WITH CONSIDERABLY DISTANCED SPACECRAFT

Abstract

The paper aims to attract the attention of space scientists and engineers to a possible improvement of communication with spacecraft. For the Earth orbiting satellites this improvement is negligible, but becomes essential for considerably distanced spacecraft. The issue is related to a modification of the underlying mathematical tool used for this purpose, namely, Kalman filtering. It is demonstrated that for considerably distanced spacecraft, the signal noise should be a delay of the observation noise in the Kalman filtering model. The respective modification of the Kalman filter for this kind of relation between the noises is given. The subject is applicable to the start of an intensive exploration of the Mars. It could improve communication with the Voyager 2 type of spacecraft, exploring the outer planets. © 2021 British Interplanetary Society. All rights reserved.