Accession Number:

AD0671924

Title:

A POLYNOMIAL FORCE MODEL REPRESENTATION FOR DETERMINING NEAR-EQUATORIAL, NEAR-SYNCHRONOUS SATELLITE ORBITS,

Descriptive Note:

Corporate Author:

AEROSPACE CORP EL SEGUNDO CALIF EL SEGUNDO TECHNICAL OPERATIONS

Personal Author(s):

• Hall,Norman S.
• Gersten,Robert H.

Report Date:

1968-05-01

Pagination or Media Count:

16.0

Abstract:

A method for accurately determining the orbits of near-equatorial, near-synchronous satellites is presented. The basic approach is to supplement the conventional spherical harmonics representation of the terrestrial gravity field with a forcing function having components represented by plynomial expansions about nominal value of vehicular sub-latitude, sub-longitude, and separation from the geocenter. Numerical results are presented for a variety of near-equatorial, near-synchronous orbits. Author

Descriptors:

• *SYNCHRONOUS SATELLITES
• *EQUATORIAL ORBITS
• GRAVITY
• ACCURACY
• ERRORS
• GEODESICS
• GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS

Subject Categories:

• Spacecraft Trajectories and Reentry

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE