PARAMETRIC PRESENTATION OF COVERAGE DATA FOR POLAR VEHICLES,
Abstract
In the design of orbiting earth-looking systems, some of the principal system design criteria (energy altitude limitations and angle of coverage) are usually imposed by the operational requirements. This report presents a display, in parametric form, of the relationships between altitude, revolutions per sidereal day, view angle and/or swath width, latitude of circular polar orbits, and the total percentage of the earth's surface looked at during various periods of time. Per cent coverage, as used in this report, is defined as being the percentage of the total earth area (at a certain latitude) that the polar orbiting vehicle can look toward while traveling in a single direction (north to south or south to north) in a specified period of time. This per cent coverage disregards the effects of more than one look at an area in the time interval of interest, as well as the effects of cloud cover and haze. The per cent coverage is thus an involved relationship between altitude, view angle (or swath width), latitude, and the number of days of operation. To encompass these relationships adequately, and to obtain maximum systems design utilization of this study, four basic types of parametric graphs are shown.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 06, 1959
- Accession Number
- AD0624632
Entities
People
- N. N. Berger
Organizations
- Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space