Orbit determination solution to non-Markov gravity error problem

Sequential orbit determination refers to orbit determination which is sequential with time. Computational tractability is enabled in part by requiring that all modeling error processes be Markov with time. The Markov principle asserts that if the state of a process is known at current time, then the conditional probability of any future event is not changed if additional information about the past is made available. Error processes with strong time serial correlations are therefore non-Markov. Such is the case for gravity modeling errors relative to geocentric spacecraft orbits. However, the Markov process assumption is not satisfied for sequential orbit determination. This paper aims to transform the dependence of gravity errors from time to Earth fixed space.