A Rapid Method For Orbital Coverage Statistics With Using Ergodic Theory
arXiv:2102.03459
Abstract
Quantifying long-term statistical properties of satellite trajectories typically entails time-consuming trajectory propagation. We present a fast, ergodic\cite{Arnold} method of analytically estimating these for perturbed elliptical orbits, broadly agreeing with trajectory propagation-derived results. We extend the approach in Graven and Lo (2019) to estimate: (1) Satellite-ground station coverage with limited satellite field of view and ground station elevation angle with numerically optimized formulae, and (2) long-term averages of general functions of satellite position. This method is fast enough to facilitate real-time, interactive tools for satellite constellation and network design, with an approximate GPU speedup.
18 pages, 8 figures, presented at the 2021 AAS Space Flight Mechanics Meeting