Authors: Junfeng Li Xin Meng Yunfeng Gao Xiang Li
Publish Date: 2005/02/10
Volume: 21, Issue: 1, Pages: 87-94
Abstract
In this paper the relative orbital configurations of satellites in formation flying with nonperturbation and J2 perturbation are studied and an orbital elements method is proposed to obtain the relative orbital configurations of satellites in formation Firstly under the condition of nonperturbation we obtain many shapes of relative orbital configurations when the semimajor axes of satellites are equal These shapes can be lines ellipses or distorted closed curves Secondly on the basis of the analysis of J2 effect on relative orbital configurations we find out that J2 effect can induce two kinds of changes of relative orbital configurations They are distortion and drifting respectively In addition when J2 perturbation is concerned we also find that the semimajor axes of the leading and following satellites should not be the same exactly in order to decrease the J2 effect The relationship of relative orbital elements and J2 effect is obtained through simulations Finally the minimum relation perturbation conditions are established in order to reduce the influence of the J2 effect The results show that the minimum relation perturbation conditions can reduce the J2 effect significantly when the orbital element differences are small enough and they can become rules for the design of satellite formation flying
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