"Sea-level" and coordinates on other planets

Hi,

From what I know when navigating on Earth, all coordinates, in
everyday civilian use, are relative to the sea level. Based on this I
have a few questions, which I hope you can answer:

- do satellites use the sea leval as reference or use the distance
from the center of the Earth?
- if it is indeed sea-level, what point of reference is used for
the distance of a space vehicle from another planet? What is
considered the equivalent sea-level reference on these bodies?

Are there any good references on 'interstella navigation', as used by
space probes?

regards

Tarken

Tarken wrote:

Hi,

From what I know when navigating on Earth, all coordinates, in
everyday civilian use, are relative to the sea level. Based on this I
have a few questions, which I hope you can answer:

- do satellites use the sea leval as reference or use the distance
from the center of the Earth?
- if it is indeed sea-level, what point of reference is used for
the distance of a space vehicle from another planet? What is
considered the equivalent sea-level reference on these bodies?

Have a look at these sites:

http://www.fact-index.com/s/se/sea_level.html
http://www.esri.com/news/arcuser/0703/geoid1of3.html
http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/puscience/

Are there any good references on 'interstella navigation', as used by
space probes?

Not interstellar, but

http://descanso.jpl.nasa.gov/Monogra...rce_external=0

You might want to check out:

"Formulation for Observed and Computed Values of Deep Space Network Data
Types for Navigation"

http://descanso.jpl.nasa.gov/Monogra...canso2_all.pdf

--
Øystein Olsen, oystein.olsen_at_astro.uio.no, http://folk.uio.no/oeysteio
Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, http://www.astro.uio.no
University of Oslo, Norway

Tarken wrote:

Hi,

From what I know when navigating on Earth, all coordinates, in
everyday civilian use, are relative to the sea level. Based on this I
have a few questions, which I hope you can answer:

- do satellites use the sea leval as reference or use the distance
from the center of the Earth?
- if it is indeed sea-level, what point of reference is used for
the distance of a space vehicle from another planet? What is
considered the equivalent sea-level reference on these bodies?

Have a look at these sites:

http://www.fact-index.com/s/se/sea_level.html
http://www.esri.com/news/arcuser/0703/geoid1of3.html
http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/puscience/

Are there any good references on 'interstella navigation', as used by
space probes?

Not interstellar, but

http://descanso.jpl.nasa.gov/Monogra...rce_external=0

You might want to check out:

"Formulation for Observed and Computed Values of Deep Space Network Data
Types for Navigation"

http://descanso.jpl.nasa.gov/Monogra...canso2_all.pdf

--
Øystein Olsen, oystein.olsen_at_astro.uio.no, http://folk.uio.no/oeysteio
Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, http://www.astro.uio.no
University of Oslo, Norway