High precision modelling of thermal perturbations with application to Pioneer 10 and Rosetta

Abstract

This thesis deals with the exact numerical determination of thermal recoil pressure (TRP) and solar radiation pressure (SRP) for complex satellite geometries. The basic equations for both perturbations are introduced and expanded into a generic numerical approach based on finite element modeling and ray-tracing. The method is applied to the missions Pioneer 10 and Rosetta. For Pioneer 10, it is found that the so-called Pioneer anomaly can fully be explained by the recoil resulting from anisotropic heat radiation. In case of Rosetta, observed discrepancies of ESAs SRP models are resolved as unmodeled TRP. Furthermore both SRP and TRP are analysed for the first Earth fly-by. Here both effects can be excluded as causes of the observed fly-by anomaly.