ODTK 7.1 Release Notes

ODTK 7.1 is a minor feature release with improvements in several areas. You are encouraged to read the release notes thoroughly to understand how you may benefit or otherwise be impacted if upgrading from a previous version.

What's new

General

You can now explicitly point ODTK to a leap second file and update the location via the ODTK APIs.

Two new HTML utilities were added:

Generate11Param - used to generate Intelsat and SES compatible 11-parameter state vectors for GEO satellites (in a manner similar to the existing GenerateTLE tool). This is useful when working with GEO operators and customers.
FlexibleStateFileDumper - used to extract information from the various *.run files, including getting a full covariance matrix.

Deep Space updates

We've added new gravity fields for Mars (GMM3 and MRO120D), Mercury (GGMES 100v08), and Venus (MGNP120PSAAP).

A new deep space mode has been added to the filter and simulator objects to provide more efficient and accurate processing when working with scenarios where light time delay is a significant (e.g. five minutes or longer).

Several solar system bodies have been updated to use the latest rotational elements from the 2015 IAU report. The affected bodies are Ceres, Deimos, Mars, Mercury, Neptune, and Phobos.

The Residuals vs Reference tool now allows you to specify a SPICE file (*.bsp) as a source of ephemeris.

GNSS

Separate GPS catalog files are now provided that contain antenna offsets specific to the NGA and IGS solution models. You should use the appropriate catalog file depending on the source of your SP3 ephemeris file in order to ensure the most accurate results when processing GPS measurements.

The GNSS constellation object can now read in multiple SP3 files rather than the user having to concatenate them offline.

Measurement models

We've added a 1-way Doppler model for use in situations where you have Doppler data from a satellite, but it's not coherent. This means the downlink frequency is based on an independent frequency reference on the satellite and not locked to an uplink reference frequency.

Added the ability to process 3-way DSN Sequential Range measurements.

The Ground TDOA and FDOA measurement models were updated to support tracking spacecraft in cis-lunar (not just Earth centered).

Added a new capability to allow the measurement geometry (e.g. elevation angle or range). This allows more realistic measurement modeling for trackers that don't have a consistent performance under all tracking geometries.

Resolved issues and additional enhancements

New Capabilities and Resolved Issues in ODTK 7.1
Tracking No.	Description
29338	The capability to specify measurement bias and white noise values as a tabulated function of measurement geometry has been added.
92290	Added a flexible state file dumper utility. The utility allows for a user-selected set of states and/or covariances within a run file to be output to a report file. The information at the top of the report generated by the StateFileDumperTool has been slightly changed to include some of the new data introduced by the flexible tool.
97005	There is a new utility, Generate11Param, to produce 11 Parameter Element Set files from satellite ephemeris.
103637	There is a new version of the "Getting Started with SLR Data" document to capture current satellite information and the latest features in ODTK.
105330	Added support for the 1W Doppler Measurement Type
105831	A new deep space mode has been added to the Filter and Simulator objects. This mode provides mode efficient and accurate processing under conditions when light time delay is substantial.
107021	This adds new gravity fields GMM3 and MRO120D for use in Mars-centered orbit propagation.
107028	The ability to specify a list of SP3 files in source ephemeris and clock information for GNSS satellites has been added. Prior versions were restricted to using a single SP3 file. The required change in settings introducing a breaking change for scripts which pull the name of the source file using the SVReference.Source.Filename attribute, which is now only valid for non-SP3 source files. A new functional attribute, SVReference.Source.GetFilename() has been added to simplify updates to existing scripts.
107270	This adds new gravity field GMMES 100v08 for use in Mercury-centered orbit propagation.
107272	This adds new gravity field MGNP120PSAAP for use in Venus-centered orbit propagation and also process noise information for gravity field MGMP180U.
107632	The capability to specify the location of the leap second file in the scenario properties has been added. A new functional attribute has also been added to the scenario to allow the loaded content of the leap second file to be retrieved.
107991	When you run the simulator for a date/time beyond the end of IRI2016 ionosphere model, it will no longer display multiple error messages. Instead, the simulator will display a single warning message for each run indicating that it will not compute ionospheric delay for date/time points outside of the IRI2016 range.
108355	A previously incorrect ionosphere model identified (IRI2016ModelData) is now correct (IRI2016).
108356	There is now an error message to indicate when the IRI2016 data files do not contain the dates necessary to evaluate the ionospheric effect on range. Prior versions of ODTK might have crashed under this condition.
108439	Separate GPS Catalog files which contain antenna offset information specific to the NGA and IGS are now provided. The compatible version of the GPS Catalog should be used as the selected source of SP3 data.
108446	The Python script used to check that a proper version of the h5py Python package is installed was incorrectly failing on h5py versions 2.10.0 and later. The script now properly detects the version number.
108475	There is now support for BSP files in the RVR tool.
108566	Due to a bug in Anaconda, users of the Provide Tracking Data Python plugin on Windows may experience problems if Anaconda is the only Python installation. See the Provide Tracker Python Plugin documentation for more details.
108611	This corrects an integer math issue when reading range measurements from UTDF tracking data files. The problem introduced potential one-way range errors of approximately 0.075 meters — a round trip light time delay of 0.5 nanoseconds — in some of the measurements. This update also corrects another integer math issue when calculating the K coefficient used in the CCSDS TDM reader when calculating the range rate value using the supplied TURNAROUND_NUMERATOR and TURNAROUND_DENOMINATOR.
108817	The RunSTK HTML utility now properly notifies you if an STK Connect command fails.
108818	The Mars gravity model now defaults to GMM3, and the Mercury gravity model now defaults to GGMES 110v08.
108856	Properties were removed or changed for STK 12. Examples include: IAgAsHpopPluginResult.Mass is now IAgAsHpopPluginResult.TotalMass and AgAttrBuilder.AddQuantityDispatchProperty() is now AgAttrBuilder.AddQuantityDispatchProperty2(). For more information see the Mapping to 12 help page.
108939, 108941	This updates the rotational elements, in accordance with the 2015 IUA report on Cartographic Coordinates and Rotational Elements, for the following solar system bodies: Ceres, Deimos, Mars, Mercury, Neptune, and Phobos.
109245	The ODTK simulator now will not crash when simulating satellites with subterranean orbits at non-Earth central bodies.
109284	On Japanese and Korean Windows, some tabs in the Graph/Export/Report Designer UI were clipped and not fully visible due to the system fonts being wider than the Western counterparts. Now, when ODTK detects wider controls for SysTreeView, it applies scalaing coefficients. However, if you still experience this issue due to the custom width fonts overriding default system fonts, please contact support for instructions on how to manually set dialog scaling constants.
109425	This removes deprecated settings in delivered graph styles, , and there is now logic to detect and remove these settings, to avoid the display of error messages. The affected settings were "SavedProductName" and "SavedProductVersion". The error messages were just a nuisance and did not affect numerical results.
109428	The Initial State Tool HTML panel now works properly when a reference trajectory in Code500 format is specified in the satellite properties and the Orbit Source on the Initial State Tool is set to reference ephemeris. Previously, under these conditions, ODTK would have reported an error and the initial state would not update properly.
109512	The default ODTK FindFile.xml file now has file find categories to correct a problem where gravity field files for Mercury and Venus as well as the quasar database file were not properly resolved when loading an ODTK v6 scenario without having ODTK v6 installed on the computer.
109622	To use the Provide Tracking Data Python plugin, an install of Python 3.7 that includes a share library libpython3.7m.so.1.0 is required. You can obtain this by building Python with --enable-shared.
109631	In the non-XML version of TDM files, the CCSDS TDM tracking data reader no longer skips over a group of TDM Metadata keywords that includes CORRECTION_RANGE.
109817	You can now set custom fonts for Graph Styles.
109823	There are four new Measurement Summary report styles: Measurement Summary by Tracker, Measurement Summary by Satellite and Tracker, Measurement Summary by Tracker and Satellite, and Measurement Summary by Tracking Strand.
109833	The Instant Maneuver Summary and Finite Maneuver Summary reports now indicate whether the data is from the simulator or one of the estimators (Filter, Smoother, or Variable Lag Smoother). When the data is from the simulator, you will see it flagged as "simulated", and instead of the term "correction" or "corr" you will see the words "perturbation" or "pert" used to indicate that these are the deviated values the simulator generated.
109834	The Instantaneous Maneuver report now properly displays the RA/DEC angle correction values, which are the differences between the estimated RA/DEC and the nominal RA/DEC values. Previously, it was showing the estimated values twice instead of the correction.
109910	The ability to simulate and process three-way DSN Sequential Range measurements has been added. Three-way sequential range observations measure the signal path encountered when the signal is transmitter from one ground station, passes through the satellite, and returns to a different ground station.
109911	This fixes an error in the DSN 3W TCP measurement validity function. The error could have resulted in the improper rejection of geometrically acceptable measurements.
109986	Improvements to the Ground TDOA/FDOA measurement modes now better support lunar activities.
109997	These are updates to the Jacchia-Bowman Indices for Solar and GeoMag, according to the latest data from Space Environment Technologies.
110182	The PRNList attribute of GNSSConstellation objects has been transitioned to a read-only list of settings reflecting the content of the the selected GNSS catalog file. In prior versions, the PRNList was editable. The change was made to make workflows less error-prone and more predictable. If changes are desired in fundamental GNSS satellite characteristics, a modified copy of the appropriate catalog file can be constructed and assigned to the GNSS Constellation object. This update may cause differences in GNSS data processing if the catalog file specified by a constellation has updated content relative to what was stored in the scenario properties since those PRN specific properties will now be overwritten with the content from the catalog file.
110213	This fixes an error in certain cases of loading a file-based attitude. Previously, ODTK would crash if a satellite was configured to use an attitude file, contained a finite maneuver specified in the body frame, and the satellite was used to generate an ephemeris file prior to using the satellite in another process. The error did not affect the use of the satellite in simulation or estimation operations.
110237	This fixes a memory leak when processing measurements with a significant light time delay (beyond GEO orbit).

Windows system requirements

To install ODTK, you must be an administrator or have elevated permission for the computer on which ODTK is being installed.

Supported operating systems

Windows 10
Windows 8
Windows 7, Service Pack 1 (SP1) or higher
Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2008 R2

Hardware requirements

Hardware	Requirements
Processor	Intel® Core™ i5 or better, AMD Ryzen™ 5 or better.
Memory / RAM	8 GB (minimum); 16+ GB (recommended).
Disk Space	1.1 GB (minimum)
Network Hardware	Network Card recommended. Online operations will not be available without it.

Minimum software requirements

Microsoft Internet Explorer 11.

Transition issues

It is suggested that you review the following list of cautions, workarounds and operational tips before using the current version of ODTK:

Scripting Guide Updates

Please see the ODTK Scripting Help topics for changes to scripting interfaces and additional scripting examples.

Unresolved issues affecting the current release

You should be aware of the following limitations and unresolved issues affecting ODTK as of the date of this release.

Unresolved Issues
Tracking No.	Description
07071	Tracker satellites cannot share tracking IDs with GPS constellation PRN numbers. If a scenario contains both an optical tracker satellite and a GPS constellation, and the tracker satellite has a tracking ID between 1-36, the tracking ID will become ambiguous.
10186	Users should not name objects using class names like Filter, Smoother, Simulator. Refer to the "VBA to VB.NET Migration" section of the ODTK Help.
23349	LaunchPad doesn't format dates in local format, it always uses MM/DD/YYYY even if machine is configured to show dates as DD/MM/YYYY.
29439	To avoid abnormal terminations that may occur when FLEXlm code is run with Windows Data Execution Prevention enabled, you need to change the DEP settings: Open the "System Properties", click on the "Advanced" tab and click on "Performance, Settings" button. This will bring up a dialog with three tabs. Click on the "DEP" tab and set the option to: "Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs and services only". You may need to restart the computer after that.
30517	The Plugins tab does not refresh the SupportsSave column. When you add a new plugin tracking data reader and click Apply, the column labeled SupportsSave is not refreshed. By default the value in this column is false, but after you add a new tracking data reader that supports save, then the value in this column should be true. The user must dismiss the panel and pull it back up to get the correct value.
31034	After a long predict, the covariance is quite large. A very large measurement update can drive the filter covariance negative.
31802	A GPS constellation object does not populate the PRNList until properties are applied. We suggest that when you first assign a source file to a GPS constellation, you press Apply before double-clicking on the PRNList to view its contents.
32139	State File To SP3 utility limits output to GPSSatellites named PRN01, PRN02, etc.
36839	If ODTK aborts or runs out of disk space then any active runfile is not saved in a valid state. This issue cannot be corrected without a big impact on processing speed (opening and closing the file and opening to append). The user is advised to monitor disk utilization and plan for large run files from ODTK to avoid disk space issues.
42672	Dynamic Earth Data does not use file find paths. Do not attempt to change the location from the default location.
45226	ODTK does not support saving and loading of files that use multi-byte character sets.
100422	When using native support for 4K displays, the Object Properties tree [+] and [-] boxes do not scale properly and will appear very small.