Results of onboard investigations on meteoroid and technogenic bodies from “Salyut” and “Mir” orbital stations

Processing of the data from onboard sensors collected during multi-year experiments on Salyut and Mir orbital stations, resulting in new information on the integral spatial density of meteoroid and technogenic bodies (MTBs), helped us to reveal certain peculiarities in the quantitative distribution of impacts of such bodies on spacecraft and to identify some of their physico-dynamic parameters. Experimental data give grounds for questioning the Poisson nature of the distribution of MTBs impacting on spacecraft.     

Orbital corrections by a single-input impulsive control applied along the geomagnetic field

This paper examines the possibility of regular orbital corrections for a satellite controlled by an impulsive force applied along the induction vector of the local geomagnetic field. The main purpose of the correcting considered in the paper is to eliminate the drift in secular variation of the relative orbital parameters over the orbital period. The obtained results are applied to the formation flying problem. The developed method is tested using numerical simulation.