Evaluating a JPL Ephemeris with MICE

Demonstrates ephemeris calculations using the MATLAB version of the JPL Spice library (MICE).

This submission is a MATLAB script named jpl_mice_ephemeris that demonstrates how to evaluate a JPL ephemeris using MICE. The script offers several options including the type of calendar date and time input (UTC or TDB), the coordinate system for the computed ephemeris data and the selection of the “target” and “observer” celestial bodies.

This MATLAB script reads JPL planetary ephemerides in a machine-independent binary format (kernels) which are available from the SPICE web site and by anonymous ftp from ftp://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/eph/planets/bsp. These *.bsp ephemeris files are IEEE-Little Endian style of binary kernel. This is the binary form native to PC/Linux, PC/Windows and MAC/Intel machines. Additional information about JPL ephemerides can be found at http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/.

Ephemeris and other required data files, platform dependent versions of the MICE mex file and many useful MATLAB functions are available at naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/toolkit_MATLAB.html. MICE is a MATLAB implementation of the JPL SPICE software system.