X-ray pulsars/Doppler integrated navigation for Mars final approach

The performance of the navigation system during the Mars final approach phase determines the initial accuracy of Mars entry phase, which is critical for a pin-point landing. An X-ray pulsars/Doppler integrated navigation strategy is proposed to improve the estimation accuracy of the spacecraft’s entry state, as well as to enhance the autonomy, real-time and reliability. The navigation system uses the X-ray pulsar measurements and Doppler velocity measurements which are complementary to each other. The performance degradation in velocity estimation at the end of the final approach phase for X-ray pulsar based navigation can thus be eliminated. The nonlinearity of the system and the performance of Extended Kalman Filter are analyzed in this paper. Furthermore, in order to optimize the navigation scheme, a principle for navigation beacons selection based on the Fisher information matrix is used. Finally, a navigation scenario based on the 2012 encounter at Mars of Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is considered to demonstrate the feasibility and accuracy of the proposed scheme. Simulation results also indicate that the proposed navigation scheme has reference value for the design of the future Mars explorations.