COMPARISON OF ORBIT ELEMENT SETS FOR MODELING PERTURBED SATELLITE RELATIVE MOTION Conference Paper

This study models the motion of satellites perturbed by the Earth's zonal gravitational harmonics J 2 through J 6 using an analytic approach based on Lie-series averaging methods, using orbit elements due to Hoots that are nonsingular for all eccentricities and inclinations. The models include mean secular rates and mean-to-osculating element transformation terms up to second order in J 2 . The relative motion of two satellites in a Projected Circular Orbit (PCO) formation is modeled via direct differencing and via a new version of the Gim-Alfriend State Transition Matrix (GA STM), accurate to first order in J 2 and in the relative coordinates, based on the Hoots elements. Simulations are compared for accuracy against numerically integrated trajectories.

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