Effect of orbital inclination on the formation of two satellites under nonspherical perturbative force
- Paper number
IAC-09.C1.8.10
- Author
Prof. Manoranjan Sinha, Indian Institute of Technology, India
- Coauthor
Prof. Arun Misra, McGill University, Canada
- Coauthor
Dr. Krishna Kumar, Ryerson University, Canada
- Year
2009
- Abstract
The effect of spherical harmonics of the Earth gravitational field is to alter the inclination of the satellite orbit. Therefore, the inclinations of the orbit of two satellites in a formation, in circular orbits, evolve differently. This leads to the change in the distance between the satellites making the formation unstable. In this paper, a complete mathematical formulation has been worked out to show how the formation evolves. Moreover, effect of angle of inclination has been brought out explicitly and under the nonspherical (harmonics) perturbative force the orbit for least perturbation has been worked out.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)