Date of Award

Spring 2010

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

Program/Concentration

Aerospace Engineering

Committee Director

Brett Newman

Committee Member

Robert L. Ash

Committee Member

Colin P. Britcher

Call Number for Print

Special Collections; LD4331.E535 C34 2010

Abstract

In this thesis, time to observation for a generic low Earth orbit satellite after being tasked for reconnaissance of a particular surface target is investigated. A closed-form Keplerian propagation of the nominal orbit is used as the process for computing a solution to the time to observation for both scanning and staring sensors. Orbital maneuvers to reach the target sooner than the nominal trajectory are also considered. In this way time to observation is managed. Lambert's problem, which is used to determine an orbit of a satellite from two position vectors and the time of flight between them, is used to manage the impulse maneuvers. A monopropellant propulsion system is used as a model to calculate the fuel costs. The presented algorithms work for all orbital eccentricities and are implemented in the Matlab software environment. Several cases are investigated throughout the study. Simulation results show that the methodology can provide quite accurate estimations for .the time to observation both in the nominal orbit and with orbital maneuvers, and the algorithm also provides estimation for fuel costs.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/s1vq-rr48

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