Their achieved accuracy was +/- 1.5km and +/- 2m/s
Which is an improvement in of itself. That improves flying craft navigation to and from the moon into something significantly easier to automate and coordinate between multiple ships, more than ballistic dead reckoning.
Better than ballistic dead reckoning, yes. I’m not sure whether it is better or worse than star trackers plus inertial navigation units at that time scale (INUs drift over time and need to be recalibrated every so often to fix that drift, but I really don’t know how accurate star trackers are for position since I only use them for attitude measurement).
Which is an improvement in of itself. That improves flying craft navigation to and from the moon into something significantly easier to automate and coordinate between multiple ships, more than ballistic dead reckoning.
Better than ballistic dead reckoning, yes. I’m not sure whether it is better or worse than star trackers plus inertial navigation units at that time scale (INUs drift over time and need to be recalibrated every so often to fix that drift, but I really don’t know how accurate star trackers are for position since I only use them for attitude measurement).
is it really such a huge deal ? Afaik “ballistic dead rekoning” is really, really accurate and isnt difficult to automate (it’s mostly math after all)
For longer missions it helps to be able to re-calibrate, as with dead-reckoning, the errors cumulate