Satellite Orbits and Attitude

Abstract

This chapter discusses fundamentals of orbital dynamics and provides a description of key perturbations affecting global navigation satellite system (GNSSglobal navigation satellite system (GNSS)) satellites along with their impact on the orbits. Models for perturbing accelerations including Earth gravity, third body perturbations, surface forces, and relativistic corrections are described with emphasis on empirical and semiempirical solar radiation pressure models. Long-term evolution of GNSS orbits and orbit keeping maneuvers are discussed. The concepts of broadcast orbit models such as almanac models, analytical ephemeris models and numerical ephemeris models used by current GNSS systems are presented along with cook book algorithms and a summary of their performance. Complementary to the discussion of GNSS satellite orbits, the chapter introduces the basic concepts of GNSS satellite attitude, which are, for example, required to describe the antenna location relative to the center-of-mass.