The Selection of Altitude and Inclination for Remote Sensing Satellites

Abstract

The success of a satellites mission is largely depended upon the choice of an appropriate orbit. In the case of a remote sensing satellite which observes the Earth, there exits an optimum solar elevation angle depending on the mission. Therefore a sun-synchronous orbit is suitable for a remote sensing mission. the second-order theory for secular perturbation due to non-symmetric geopotential was described. To design a sun-synchronous orbit, a constraint condition on the regression of node was derived. A algorithm to determine the altitude and the inclination was introduced using this constraint condition. As practical examples, the altitudes and the inclinations of four remote sensing satellites were calculated. The ground tracks obtained by the orbit propagator were used to verify the resulting sun-synchronous orbital elements.