Periodic solutions of nonlinear relative motion satellites

Abstract

The relative motion of an outline of the rendezvous problem has been studied by assuming that the chief satellite is in circular symmetric orbits. The legitimacy of perturbation techniques and nonlinear relative motion are investigated. The deputy satellite equations of motion with respect to the fixed references at the center of the chief satellite are nonlinear in the general case. We found the periodic solutions of the linear relative motion satellite and for the nonlinear relative motion satellite using the Lindstedt–Poincaré technique. Comparisons among the analytical solutions of linear and nonlinear motions and the obtained solution by the numerical integration of the explicit Euler method for both motions are investigated. We demonstrate that both analytical and numerical solutions of linear motion are symmetric periodic. However, the solutions of nonlinear motion obtained by the Lindstedt–Poincaré technique are periodic and the numerical solutions obtained by integration by using explicit Euler method are non-periodic. Thus, the Lindstedt–Poincaré technique is recommended for designing the periodic solutions. Furthermore, a comparison between linear and nonlinear analytical solutions of relative motion is investigated graphically.