Initial Acquisition Orbit Determination for NEAScout and the Artemis I Secondary Payloads

Eight secondary payloads of the Artemis I mission, including NEAScout, were to be navigated through initial acquisition by a small JPL team. There were many challenges in the simultaneous orbit determination of multiple spacecraft includ- ing limited tracking data. This paper describes how techniques and processes derived from NEAScout were used successfully during this historic launch. An innovative approach was adopted to deal with the limited two-way radiometric data. This involved relying on differenced one-way Doppler acquired with mul- tiple open-loop receivers. The learned lessons from the simulataneous navigation of secondary payloads are valuable since such campaigns are likely increasingly common in future spaceflight.