Orbit design for future SpaceChip swarm missions in a planetary atmosphere

Abstract

The effect of solar radiation pressure and atmospheric drag on the orbital dynamics of satellites-on-a-chip (SpaceChips) is exploited to design equatorial long-lived orbits about the oblate Earth. The orbit energy gain due to asymmetric solar radiation pressure, considering the Earths shadow, is used to balance the energy loss due to atmospheric drag. Future missions for a swarm of SpaceChips are proposed, where a number of small devices are released from a conventional spacecraft to perform spatially distributed measurements of the conditions in the ionosphere and exosphere. It is shown that the orbit lifetime can be extended and indeed selected through solar radiation pressure and the end-of-life re-entry of the swarm can be ensured, by exploiting atmospheric drag

Phase space description of the dynamics due to the coupled effect of the planetary oblateness and the solar radiation pressure perturbations

“…Note that the Hamiltonian function is a constant of motion and so it is Σ 3 , since H does not depend on σ 3 . In other words, as already noticed in [8] for lunisolar perturbations, in Eq.…”

“…In the following, (a, e, i, Ω, ω) are the Keplerian orbital elements of the small body measured with respect to the Earth equatorial plane, n the mean motion of the small body, µ the Earth gravitational parameter, J 2 the second zonal term of the geopotential, r ⊕ the equatorial radius of the Earth, C ⊕ = µJ 2 r 2 ⊕ , the obliquity of the ecliptic, P the solar radiation pressure at 1 AU, c R the reflectivity coefficient 2 , A/m the area-to-mass ratio of the small body, C SRP = 3 2 P c R A m , λ S the longitude of the Sun measured on the ecliptic plane, and the resonant argument is…”

“…As far as we know, such derivation does not exist at the moment and it can represent a fundamental tool in different fields. In particular, the stationary configurations, the invariant curves in the libration regions corresponding to the elliptic points and the hyperbolic invariant manifolds associated with the hyperbolic points can have several applications in planetary dynamics (e.g., [1,2]) and in mission design (e.g., [3,4]).…”

Orbital Dynamics of "Smart-Dust" Devices with Solar Radiation Pressure and Drag

“…Notably, the short lifetime of high area-to-mass spacecraft can be greatly extended (and indeed selected) through the interaction of energy gain from asymmetric solar radiation pressure and energy dissipation due to drag. Future missions for swarm of SpaceChips were proposed for the study of the upper layers of the Earth atmosphere [8]. Moreover, the value of R c , D c and A m can be engineered for selecting different conditions for long-lived orbits in the phase space.…”

An International Environmental Agreement for space debris mitigation among asymmetric nations

“…It might be possible, however, to reduce risk to other spacecraft by changing the reflectivity of their plating in order to limit their orbital phase space domain. In addition, suitable design (i.e., a high area-to-mass ratio) can facilitate deorbiting at end-of-life (Colombo and McInnes, 2010). "lifetime risk", which they define as the risk of catastrophic destruction posed to an operational spacecraft launched t years from present under a particular scenario of launch and mitigation assumptions.…”