Study of Ground Point Tracking of Earth Observation Satellites

Recently, earth observation satellite missions are becoming more demanding and diversified to note 3-dimensional map production, disaster observation, earth resource exploration, and so on. As a result, the pointing or tracking requirements of mission instruments such as CCD camera or Rader to the ground target are decisive factors in designing the Attitude and Orbit Control System (AOCS). In this paper, the relation between AOCS capability of the satellite main body and the ground tracking accuracy is strictly defined and a new determination method of attitude and attitude rate specifications to meet these requirements is proposed. Assuming an AOCS with a star tracker unit and GPS, the validity of the proposed method is demonstrated by numerical simulations.