Ann Dietrich
Senior Navigation Algorithms, Draper Laboratories
Friday, February 19 | 12:30 P.M. | Zoom Webinar
Abstract: As part of the NASA Artemis program, the Orion capsule will transfer the next American astronauts to lunar orbit with the intent to build a sustainable presence on the moon. The Artemis I mission is scheduled to launch in November 2021, where the uncrewed Orion capsule will insert into a distant retrograde orbit around the moon before returning to Earth. Initial assessment of the orbit state covariance was performed with the top-level design tool, LinCov. This task verifies the initial trajectory covariance analysis and maneuver error modeling through the statistical evaluation of Monte Carlo runs. The trajectory points of interest are quiescent flight arcs and maneuver execution errors. Through analytical covariance propagation and batch estimation, verification of the initial design assessment tools is shown, as well as provides insight into tuning these tools for continued use.
Bio: Ann Dietrich is a senior member of the technical staff at Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, MA. Currently she is supporting the flight software navigation team of the NASA Orion capsule, run out of NASA JSC, and she is also a task lead in the area of precision navigation for the Dynetics-led team of the NASA Human Landing System. Before joining Draper, Ann was at NASA JPL in Pasadena, CA, supporting precise orbit determination projects and the IGS products of GPS satellites. Ann received her PhD from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2017, with a thesis focused on orbit determination around small celestial bodies using 3D LIDAR measurements. While at CU, she was a Smead Scholar and held an NSF Fellowship. Ann’s research interests include orbit determination and covariance analysis, and developing terrain relative navigation techniques.