AN ORBITAL CONTROL PROCESS FOR A 24-HOUR COMMUNICATION SATELLITE
Abstract
A description is given of a guidance or orbital control process particularly applicable for use with a 24-hour communication satellite. The process is based on fundamental principles of celestial mechanics, and places the main burden of error sensing and computation on ground stations. The first objective is to enable a satellite to rendezvous with a hypothetical reference satellite of point which is moving in a specified reference orbit, with a period of one sidereal day. When this objective is accomplished within tolerable errors, the system may be used as necessary to reduce errors arising from perturbations due to the gravitational accelerations of the sun, moon, and earth's bulge. The guidance process, the mathematical relationships involved, and some details of simulating its operation on a digital computer are discussed. The process itself depends on obtaining six or more independent observations, from one or more ground stations, of a satellite moving in some non-reference orbit as dictated by state-of-the-art injection cut-off errors. These observational quantities permit the calculation of orbital parameter errors (as compared to the reference orbit). It is then possible to drive errors nearly to zero by applying corrective thrust to the vehicle in accordance with mathematical relationship or guidance law. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1961
- Accession Number
- AD0266630
Entities
People
- F.t. Smith
- J.h. Hutcheson
Organizations
- RAND Corporation