ON THE MOTION OF NEARLY SYNCHRONOUS SATELLITES
Abstract
The longitudinal forces due to the longitude-dependent part of the Earth's gravitational potential can have considerable effects on nearly synchronous satellites. As a preliminary the special case of the circular equatorial orbit is considered. An approximate solution is given for the motion under the combination of all tesseral harmonics, and the relation to the Jacobi integral is discussed. For general orbits the disturbing function for the combination of all tesseral harmonics is developed in terms of the usual elliptic elements and the resonant terms identified and isolated. With a suitable definition of the mean longitude, it is shown that the motion in longitude relative to the Earth is equivalent to that of a particle moving in a one-dimensional potential, provided only that the eccentricity is small.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1964
- Accession Number
- AD0464389
Entities
People
- R. R. Allan
Organizations
- Royal Aircraft Establishment