Dynamical evolution of high area-to-mass ratio debris released into GPS orbits

A large set of simulations, including all the relevant perturbations, was carried out to investigate the long-term dynamical evolution of fictitious high area-to-mass ratio (A/M) objects released, with a negligible velocity variation, in each of the six orbital planes used by Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. As with similar objects discovered in near synchronous trajectories, long lifetime orbits, with mean motions of about 2 revolutions per day, were found possible for debris characterized by extremely high area-to-mass ratios. Often the lifetime exceeds 100 years up to A/M ∼ 45 m²/kg, decreasing rapidly to a few months above such a threshold. However, the details of the evolution, which are conditioned by the complex interplay of solar radiation pressure and geopotential plus luni-solar resonances, depend on the initial conditions. Different behaviors are thus possible. In any case, objects like those discovered in synchronous orbits, with A/M as high as 20–40 m²/kg, could also survive in this orbital regime, with semi-major axes close to the semi-synchronous values, with maximum eccentricities between 0.3 and 0.7, and with significant orbit pole precessions (faster and wider for increasing values of A/M), leading to inclinations between 30° and more than 90°.     

Spacecraft formation flying control around L2 sun-earth libration point using on–off SDRE approach

In this paper, on–off SDRE control approach is presented for spacecraft formation flying control around sun-earth L2 libration point. Orbits around libration points are significant targets for many space missions mainly because of efficient fuel consumption. Furthermore, less propellant usage can be achieved by considering optimal control approaches in spacecraft formation flying control design. Among various nonlinear and optimal control methods, SDRE has shown to be a popular controller in various missions due to the privileges including efficiency, accuracy and robustness. The spacecraft are assumed to have on–off thrusters as actuators. It requires them to be fed with a sequence of on–off pulses which is regarded as a challenge for spacecraft designers. Hence, the main contribution of this paper is designing an on–off SDRE approach for the formation flight around sun-earth L2 point with uncertainty with energy and accuracy considerations. Including on–off input as a constraint is not feasible for SDRE implementation because it makes the system non-affine. An alternative is utilizing an integral action technique and an auxiliary control to make the system affine which leads to on–off SDRE approach. It has also been shown that the proposed method is robust against parametric uncertainties of the states. Present study aims to design an energy-beneficial, simple and attractive controller for a complex nonlinear system with on–off inputs and uncertainty in CRTBP. Simulation results show that the on–off SDRE control could provide the formation flight around L2 point with high accuracy using less energy consumption.     

Formation flying reconfiguration manoeuvres via environmental forces in highly elliptical orbits

A study on reconfiguration manoevres applied to a tetrahedral formation in highly elliptical orbits is proposed, by using a propellantless solution. The manoeuvring strategy consists in exploiting certain environmental forces, specifically those provided by solar radiation pressure and atmospheric drag, by actively controlling the satellites’ attitudes. Through inverse dynamics particle swarm optimization the optimal attitudes required for the manoeuvres are evaluated, whereas the configuration’s evolution is simulated by a high-fidelity orbital simulator. The goal of the reconfiguration problem is to find an optimal control in order for the four spacecraft to reach a desired configuration in a specified portion of orbit, where the desired configuration is evaluated by a shape and size geometric parameter. By increasing the manoeuvring time and the satellites’ area to mass ratio, all the case studies considered are successfully verified.     

一种适用于大幅值Quasi周期轨道的数值构造方法

针对现有方法在构造大幅值quasi周期轨道时收敛性和通用性不足等问题,提出一种适用于大幅值quasi周期轨道的数值构造方法。首先针对2维不变环面的计算问题,设计了映射间隔约束的环面多步微分修正算法。在此基础上,采用自然参数延拓法和伪弧长延拓法两种不同的思路构造等映射间隔的quasi周期轨道族。接着以quasi-Vertical为对象分析了两种思路各自的特点。最后以quasi-Axial, quasi-DRO等为对象验证了方法对三角平动点及多对复特征值情况的适用性。仿真结果表明,所提出的方法能够简单有效地解决多种类型幅值比超过1.2的大幅值quasi周期轨道的数值计算问题。     

Long-term evolution of Galileo operational orbits by canonical perturbation theory

Galileo operational orbits are slightly affected by the 3 to 5 tesseral resonance, an effect that can be much more important in the case of disposal orbits. Proceeding by canonical perturbation theory we show that the part of the long-term Hamiltonian corresponding to the non-centralities of the Earth's gravitational potential can be replaced by an intermediary that shows the pendulum dynamics of the 3 to 5 tesseral resonance problem. Inclusion of lunisolar perturbations requires a semi-analytical integration, which is compared with the corresponding results from the well-established Draper Semi-analytical Satellite Theory.     

典型卫星轨道的位移损伤剂量计算与分析

位移损伤剂量是评估电子元器件在轨发生位移损伤导致性能退化的重要参数。文章首先给出了位移损伤剂量的等效原理和计算方法,即用位移损伤等效注量来表征卫星轨道带电粒子导致的位移损伤剂量;之后分别采用3种不同的太阳质子注量模型,计算了典型大椭圆轨道的位移损伤等效注量,并结合计算结果对不同模型的特点和适用性进行了分析;其后针对4种典型卫星轨道,计算了不同飞行寿命期内的位移损伤等效注量,发现不同轨道的位移损伤剂量有较大差异,并结合空间带电粒子辐射环境分布特点及卫星轨道参数等分析了差异的产生原因;最后,分析不同的太阳质子注量预估方法对位移损伤剂量计算结果的影响,总结了不同轨道、不同飞行寿命情况下卫星经受的带电粒子辐射环境的严酷程度。研究结果可为卫星内部元器件位移损伤效应防护工作提供参考。     

Earth and Mars observation using periodic orbits

This paper reports the results of a general study carried out on the Periodic Multi-SunSynchronous Orbits (PMSSOs), which the classical Periodic SunSynchronous Orbits (PSSOs) represent a specific solution of. Such orbits allow to obtain cycles of observation of the same region in which the solar illumination regularly varies according to the value of the orbit elements and comes back to the initial condition after a time interval which is multiple of the revisit time. Therefore this kind of orbits meets all the remote sensing applications that need observations of the same area at different local times (for example the reconstruction of the day-nighttime trend of the surface temperature of the planet) and it is particularly suitable to the study of several terrestrial and martian phenomena (diurnal cycle of the hazes and clouds, dynamics of the thermal tides, density variations, meteorology phenomena, etc.). The design of PMSSO is based on the variation of the Right Ascension of the Ascending Node due to the Earth oblateness (referred as basic solution). However, with respect to the basic solution, the analysis of the perturbative effects has demonstrated the need, especially in the case of Mars, to take into account all the superior harmonics of the gravitational field. To this end a corrective factor, to add to the basic equations, has been proposed, allowing a significant saving of propellant (of the order of 2 km/s per year). Besides, single and multi-plane satellite constellations have been taken into account in order to improve the repetition of observation and the ground spatial resolution.     

Two-manoeuvres transfers between LEOs and Lissajous orbits in the Earth–Moon system

The purpose of this work is to compute transfer trajectories from a given Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to a nominal Lissajous quasi-periodic orbit either around the point L₁ or the point L₂ in the Earth–Moon system. This is achieved by adopting the Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem (CR3BP) as force model and applying the tools of Dynamical Systems Theory.     

有限推力椭圆轨道近距离拦截方法

针对椭圆轨道近距离飞行器确定时间最小能量拦截问题,研究了有限推力一次机动作