Jet Transport propagation of uncertainties for orbits around the Earth

Paper number

IAC-13,C1,8,9,x18245

Author

Mr. Daniel Pérez-Palau, University of Barcelona, Spain

Coauthor

Prof. Josep J. Masdemont, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC), Spain

Coauthor

Prof. Gerard Gomez, University of Barcelona, Spain

Year

2013

Abstract

In this paper we present a new tool to study the non-linear propagation of
uncertainties for orbits around the Earth. The tool we introduce is known as 
Jet Transport and allows to numerically propagate full neigbourhoods of
initial states instead of a single initial state with usual integrators.
The description of the image neighbourhood is obtained in a semi-analytical
way by means of polynomials in 6 variables. These variables correspond 
to displacements in the phase space from the reference point selected 
in an orbit as initial condition.

The basis of the procedure is a standard numerical integrator of ordinary 
differential equations (such as a Runge-Kutta or a Taylor method) where the 
usual arithmetic is replaced by a polynomial arithmetic, in this way, the 
solution of the variational equations is obtained up to high order. 

The method is applied to the propagation of satellite trajectories and to
obtain the images, and high order nonlinear descriptions, of uncertainty 
ellipsoids. The procedure can be specially adapted to the determination of
collision probabilities with cataloged space debris or for the end of life
analysis of spacecraft in Medium Earth Orbits.

Abstract document

IAC-13,C1,8,9,x18245.brief.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-13,C1,8,9,x18245.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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