AAS 95-428

Parallel Orbit Propagation and the Analysis of Satellite Constellations

S.T. Wallace, R.J. Proulx, and P.J. Cefola, The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc., Cambridge, MA

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a scalable, portable parallel orbit propagator, with application to the analysis of satellite constellations. The Draper Semianalytic Satellite Theory (DSST) is coupled with the Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) software package to demonstrate the power of the networked computing paradigm. The PVM/DSST is employed to analyze the stability of the 840 satellite Teledesic constellation, as described in the 1994 FCC filing, under real-world perturbations. Coupled with genetic algorithm optimization software, the frozen orbit of a satellite in the presence of arbitrary perturbations is easily determined. This concept is extended to investigate constellation design for optimal performance.