AAS 98-172
CONTINUOUS GLOBAL EARTH COVERAGE BY MEANS OF MULTISTATIONARY ORBITS
M. M. Castronuovo, A. Bardone, M. Di Ruscio - Universita degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", Italy
Abstract
The traditional way to obtain a continuous global Earth coverage is to use three geostationary satellites at 120¡ of longitude from each other. An alternative and more cost-effective solution consists in using a constellation of four satellites on multistationary orbits rotated 90¡ one from the other. Such orbits are equatorial highly elliptic orbits with a revolution period of about 8 hours. For about 6 hours, around the apogee, the satellite is almost stationary with respect to a given meridian. In this paper we present a detailed analysis of the dynamics of such constellation, considering the effect of the major perturbations on the evolution of the orbital parameters and on the ground station visibility pattern. The visibility characteristics of the constellation have been computed for the CRPSM Ground Station of Malindi (Kenya) and the global Earth coverage has been evaluated.
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