Special Space Orbit: Concept and Application
Since the beginning of the 21st century, mankind has been carrying out various space activities, especially new types of space missions such as space-based space target surveillance, on-orbit service, and so on. These activities have brought about increas
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Special Space Orbit: Concept and Application
Since the beginning of the 21st century, mankind has been carrying out various space activities, especially new types of space missions such as space-based space target surveillance, on-orbit service, and so on. These activities have brought about increasingly higher requirements for orbits with special space motion characteristics. However, traditional orbit theories and design methods can no longer satisfy these special application demands. Therefore, in this chapter, the concepts and characteristics of a special space orbit will be introduced and analyzed, with six typical special space orbits elaborated in accordance with their specific application requirements.
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Special Space Orbit: Concept
A spacecraft orbit refers to the motion trajectory of the centroid of an operating spacecraft. In the light of different flight missions, orbits can be generally classified into three categories, i.e., the artificial earth satellite trajectory, the Earth-to-Moon flight trajectory and the interplanetary flight trajectory. Typical orbits are usually Keplerian ones, which satisfy the fundamental motion equations of the restricted two body problem. Taking advantage of the typical orbit equations, such as the above fundamental motion equations and the Kepler Equation, these orbits can be precisely predicted. r¼
að1 e2 Þ 1 þ e cos f
ð2:1Þ
Here, a, e, r and f refer to the semi-major axis, the eccentricity, the geocentric distance and the true anomaly of an orbit, respectively.
© National Defense Industry Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 Y. Zhang et al., Theory and Design Methods of Special Space Orbits, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-2948-6_2
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Special Space Orbit: Concept and Application
The concept of special space orbit was put forward relative to the currently widely applied typical space orbit. Compared to typical orbits, special space orbits have the following unique features.
2.1.1
Differences in Orbit Design Concepts
With the successful launch of the first artificial earth satellite in the 1950s, design theories and methods of spacecraft orbit have been developing rapidly. The primary missions of a spacecraft at that time were to conduct reconnaissance and surveillance of hotspot areas, and to provide communications and navigation support for the army, the navy and the air force. Hence, the design of a spacecraft orbit at that time focused mainly on the relative motion between the spacecraft and the ground area, and the absolute orbit design methods, which take the Earth as the reference, were adopted, e.g., the sun-synchronous orbit, the recursive orbit, the stay orbit, and so on. In addition, mankind has spared no efforts in exploring untapped areas in space. In the 1960s, there were many lunar exploration projects with burgeoning interplanetary explorations to Venus, Mercury, Mars, and other planets. Meanwhile, theories and design methods in interplanetary exploration orbits have become increasingly mature. The mid and late 1990s witnessed anot
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