Quasi-satellite system for leader-follower spacecraft formation

4th AEROTECH- Innovation in Aerospace Engineering and Technology

航空航天工程

Harithuddin, A.S.M.^1

Department of Aerospace Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang

43400, Malaysia^1

关键词: Celestial bodies;    Initial conditions;    Parametric -analysis;    Satellite dynamics;    Satellite formations;    Satellite motions;    Spacecraft formation flight;    Spacecraft formations;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/152/1/012034/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1757-899X/152/1/012034

学科分类：航空航天科学

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

The quasi-satellite motion is where a celestial body appears to orbit around another body that is also orbiting a common focus. The recent discoveries of asteroids in quasi-satellite motion around the Earth inspired this work. This paper attempts to look into exploiting the quasi-satellite dynamics in nature to provide a new perspective in spacecraft formation flight. We consider a two-spacecraft formation flight in which the follower appears to orbit of the leader in its reference frame. We perform a parametric analysis by varying the orbital elements of leader and follower examine the initial conditions needed to simulate a quasi-satellite formation system. We illustrate the trajectories of the follower spacecraft. This serves two purposes: firstly, to demonstrate formation flight based on the idea of quasi-satellite; and secondly, to gain some insights on the shapes of the resultant "quasi-orbits".