AAS 95-426

An Analytic Orbit Propagation Program for Satellite Catalog Maintenance

S. L. Coffey, H. L. Neal, A. M. Segerman and J. J. Travisano, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C.

Abstract

Brouwer's theory, published in 1959, is the basic analytic orbit theory underlying most of the satellite catalog maintenance operations at the Air Force and Naval Space Commands. Since 1959, advances in mathematics and in computer software and computer hardware have enabled the development of a new propagator, called AOPP (Analytic Orbit Propagation Program). This paper describes the mathematics, the software development and the performance of this new program.