Virtual SPICE Training for BepiColombo, July 21-22, 2020
In this lesson you will develop a series of simple programs that demonstrate the usage of SpiceyPy to compute a variety of different geometric quantities applicable to experiments carried out by a remote sensing instrument flown on an interplanetary spacecraft.
You may find it useful to consult the permuted index, the headers of various source modules, and several Required Reading documents available at the NAIF site.
For the following exercises, instead of loading the meta-kernel try to sort out the exact kernels that you need to load for the given execrcise and load them (unless indicated).
Write a program that given a UTC time string, converts it to the following time systems and output formats:
and displays the results. Use the program to convert "2020-OCT-15 03:57:49" UTC into these alternate systems.
Write a program that given a UTC time string computes the following quantities at that epoch:
The apparent state of Venus as seen from BepiColombo MPO in the J2000 frame, in kilometers and kilometers/second. This vector itself is not of any particular interest, but it is a useful intermediate quantity in some geometry calculations.
The one-way light time between BepiColombo MPO and the apparent position of Earth, in seconds.
The actual (geometric) distance between the Sun and Venus, in astronomical units.
and displays the results. Use the program to compute these quantities at "2020-OCT-15 03:57:49" UTC.
Write a program that given a UTC time string computes and displays the following at the epoch of interest:
The nominal instrument view direction is not provided by any kernel variable, but it is indicated in the BepiColombo MPO frame kernel.
Use the program to compute these quantities at the epoch "2027 JUN 11 20:50:00" UTC.
Write a program that given a UTC time string computes the following quantities at that epoch:
For the computations use the ellipsoidal shape model:
near point/ellipsoid
definition.
The program displays the results. Use the program to compute these quantities at "2027 JUN 11 20:10:00" UTC.
Write a program given an input UTC time string that computes the intersection of the MPO SERENA ELENA
boresight and field of view (FOV) boundary vectors with the surface of Mercury.
The program presents each point of intersection as
For each of the sensor FOV boundary and boresight vectors, if an intersection is found, the program displays the results of the above computations, otherwise it indicates no intersection exists.
At each point of intersection compute the following:
Use this program to compute values at "2027 JUN 11 20:10:00" UTC.
Try to reproduce all the previous calculations with WebGeocalc. You will need to load the appropriate meta-kernel: "SPICE CLASS -- BepiColombo Remote Sensing Lesson Kernels"