Flight dynamic model for low earth orbit satellites

Abstract

Low Earth Orbit satellite(LEO) missions have potentially attractive features such as low launch cost, and wide remote sensing applications. There are three vital missions during the satellites life time including orbit transfer from the parking to the operating orbit, maintaining the operating orbit and de-orbiting mission to a disposal orbit at the end of the satellite lifetime according to the standard disposal orbit law. The mathematical model has been implemented to study various LEO mission orbits including the three vital missions. The mathematical model evaluates the required performance parameters, velocity budget, number of manoeuvers, duration and consumed propellant mass for each mission. The mathematical algorithm is carried out using Matlab/Simulink, the complete mathematical flight dynamic model has been verified through comparisons with the generated mission scenarios from Satellite Tool kit (STK), the graphical user interface is designed to display the model. The carried out algorithm can be applied in satellite mission design to help predicting the parameters for each mission to minimize the risks and intensive tests. it can be considered as powerful tool to design and analysis LEO satellite missions.

PicSat’s Enduring Legacy. Probing the Flight of a Small Astronomical Satellite

“…Several academic simulators, when compared to the expected characteristics of a high-fidelity mathematical simulator, are deficient in at least one of the above items. This occurs both in simulators for specific applications, such as ACS and/or ADS for a particular nanosatellite Krogh & Schreder 2002;Gießelmann 2006;Francois-Lavet 2010;Jensen & Vinther 2010;Holst 2014;van Vuuren 2015;Rondão 2016;Thomsen & Nielsen 2016;Avanzini et al 2019;Jonsson 2019), and in simulators with more comprehensive proposals to serve as a development platform (Menges et al 1998;Lovera 2003;Nasirian et al 2006;Naqvi & Raza 2007;Triharjanto et al 2015;Habibkhah et al 2017;Alshamy et al 2019;Liu et al2019).…”

“…This is mainly due to the difficulty of obtaining real data. Alternatively, some studies compare their own simulation results with other academic (Liu et al 2019) or commercial (Naqvi & Raza 2007;Alshamy et al 2019) simulators.…”