Asteroid satellite ephemeride service. Mutual occultations and eclipses

A tool has been developed for computing the ephemerides of asteroid satellites, which are needed to plan and verify new observations, as well as for space missions. The proposed ephemeris server is available online at http://www.sai.msu.ru/neb/nss/html/multisat/nssAsthe.htm and http://nsdb.imcce.fr/multisat/nssAsthe.htm. Motion models for 62 asteroid satellites are included, which are computed based on all available observations. The proposed ephemeris server can provide relative satellite positions for a series of time instants specified by the user. The server displays the time intervals of mutual occultations and eclipses in asteroid systems with satellites, as well as times of satellite elongations, when the observing conditions are most favorable. The circumstances of all mutual occultations and eclipses in the satellite systems are determined. During the years 2021–2025, events are to occur in 21 of the 62 systems considered. The plots show the time intervals of the phenomena. The reliability of the computed ephemerides is verified by comparing their predictions with the results published by other authors. We use our original method to estimate the accuracy of asteroid satellite ephemerides. Thus the asteroid satellite ephemeris server provides not only ephemerides but also the uncertainties of the predicted satellite positions. The low accuracy of the ephemerides of some satellites is due to the fact that their orbits are determined from a small number of observations spanning a short time interval. Our tool can be used with more accurate orbital parameters and for new satellites to be discovered in the future. We hope to work on this initial release and to consider adding updates including refined astrometry and additional systems. •Orbits of 62 asteroid’s satellites are presented.•Ephemeride server for satellites of asteroids is available online.•Mutual occultations and eclipses occur only for 21 systems of asteroid with satellites in 2021–2025.