Saturn Ring Mass and Zonal Gravitational Harmonics Estimate at the End of the Cassini “Grand Finale”

Abstract:

"Solstice" mission is the 7-year extension of the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft exploration of the Saturn system that will culminate with the “Grand Finale”. Beginning in mid-2017, the spacecraft is scheduled to execute 22 orbits that have their periapses between the innermost D-ring and the upper layers of Saturn's atmosphere. These orbits will be perturbed by the gravitational field of Saturn as well as by the rings. We present an analysis of simulated “Grand Finale” radiometric data, and we investigate their sensitivity to the ring mass and higher zonal gravitational harmonics of the planet. We model the data quantity with respect to the available coverage of the tracking stations on Earth, and we account for the times when the spacecraft is occulted either by Saturn or the rings. We also use different data weights to simulate changes in the data quality. The dynamical model of the spacecraft motion includes both gravitational and non-gravitational forces, such as the daily momentum management due to Reaction Wheel Assembly and radioisotope thermo-electric generator accelerations. We solve the equations of motion and use a weighted-least squares fit to obtain spacecraft’s state vector, mass(es) of the ring or the individual rings, zonal harmonics, and non-gravitational accelerations. We also investigate some a-priori values of the A- and B-ring masses from Tiscareno et al. (2007) and Hedman et al. (2015) analyses. The preliminary results suggest that the “Grand Finale” orbits should remain sensitive to the ring mass even for GM_ring<2 km³/s² and that they will also provide high accuracy estimates of the zonal harmonics J₈, J₁₀, and J₁₂.