Satellite Orbit Design and Maintenance for Terrestrial Coverage

This paper presents semi-analytical techniques for the study of the coverage by satellites in Earth’s orbits. In particular, the coverage by a satellite over a designated area on the Earth’s surface is studied as a function of orbital elements. The semi-analytical nature of themethods developed enable the evaluation of several performancemetrics associated with the coverage problem without the need for numerical integration of the orbit’s parameters over the satellite’s lifetime. Results are shown to match very well with those obtained from numerical simulations on a fullscale model. In the second part of the paper, analytical formulas for velocity increments required for orbit maintenance are presented. These formulas are useful for estimating a fuel budget for a particular terrestrial coverage mission.

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