LEO constellation design methodology for observing multi-targets

This paper is based on the second problem of the 8th China Space Trajectory Design Competition(CTOC8).The background is LEO constellation design strategy for monitoring discrete multi-targets with small stellite under J model.The difculty is that the small satellite is equipped with low-cost cameras with limited coverage ability and the targets are distributed separately in a key area,which result in long revisit time or large pumber of satelites based on traditional design method.In this paper,a speciflc LEO consellation design method is proposed to cope with the problems.First,grid search and numerical method are performed to construct a database consisting of repeating ground track orbits.Then several orbits are carefully selected by pruning method to visit each target.Finally,repeating ground track costellation is constructed to meet the maximun revisit time constraint.The present method provides a systematic constellation design methodology of remote sensing observation with limited coverage ability,and demonstrates the resulting constellation can obtain rapid revisit frequency over discrete multi-targets with the least number of satellites.

Analytical solutions for Earth discontinuous coverage of satellite constellation with repeating ground tracks

This paper presents an analytical model for calculating the Earth discontinuous coverage of satellite constellation with repeating ground tracks by integrating and extending the application of coverage region and route theory.Specifically,the visibility condition for a ground point is represented as a coverage region in the two-dimension map of visibility properties,and the trajectories of satellites with circular orbits and repeating ground tracks are converted to several inclined lines in the map.By analyzing the intersections of the lines and the edge of the coverage region,the coverage durations for the ground point can be calculated.Based on the point coverage,the variations of coverage characteristics along the parallel are analyzed,and the regional or global coverage characteristics of constellations can be obtained.Numerical examples show that the proposed method can accurately and rapidly calculate the coverage characteristics,e.g.revisit time and coverage time.The calculated results are extremely close to those of the Satellite Tool Kit(STK)and are also superior to the existing research results.The proposed analytical model can be a useful tool for constellation design and coverage performance analysis.