Orbit Design

Orbit Design

Orbit design has no absolute rules; but some of key process which aid
designing or selecting orbit. They are

1. Establish orbit types

2. Determine orbit-related mission requirements
3. Asses the applicability of specialized orbits
4. Evaluate whether single satellite vs. constellation is needed.
5. Do mission orbit design trades
Assume circular orbit (if appliable)
Conduct altitude/inclination trade

6. Assess launch and retrieval or disposal options

7. Evaluate constellation growth and replenishment (if applicable)
8. Create ΔV budget
9. Document orbit parameters, selection criteria, and allowed ranges. Iterate as
needed.

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 Orbit Design

Establish Orbit Types

1. Parking Orbit – a temporary orbit which provides a safe and convenient location
for satellite checkout, storage between operations or at end-of-life. Also used to
match conditions between phases such as post-launch and pre-orbit transfer

2. Tnasfer Orbit – used for getting from place to place. Example: transfer orbit to
geosynchronous altitude; interplanetary orbit to Mars

3. Space-Referenced Orbit – an operational orbit whose principal characteristic is

being somewhere in space. Example: Lagrange point orbits for space sampling
and observations; orbits for celestial observations

4. Earth-Referenced Orbit – an operational orbit which provides the necessary

coverage of the surface of Earth or near-Earth space. Example: GEO and LEO
satellites for Earth resources, meteorology or communications.

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 Orbit Design

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 Orbit Design

Establish Orbit Related Mission Requirements

• For each mission segment, we define the orbit related requirements.

• They may include orbital limits, individual requirements such as altitude needed for
specific observations.
Example: resolution or required aperture tend to drive the orbit to low altitudes, but
coverage, lifetime, and survivability drive the spacecraft to higher altitudes.

Assess Specialized Orbits

• In selecting the orbit for any mission phase, we must first determine if a specialized orbit
applies.
• Specialized orbits are those with unique characteristics, such as the geostationary ring in
which satellites can remain nearly stationary over a given point on the Earth's equator.

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 Orbit Design

Choosing Single Satellite or Constellation

• The principal advantage of a single satellite is that it reduces cost by minimizing

the mission overhead.
• Thus, one satellite will have one power system, one attitude control system, one
telemetry system, and require only a single launch vehicle.
• A constellation, on the other band, may provide better coverage, higher reliability
if a satellite is lost, and more survivability.

Do Mission Orbit Design Trades

• The next step is to select the mission orbit by evaluating how orbit parameters
affect each of the mission requirements.
• The easiest way to begin is by assuming a circular orbit and then conducting
altitude and inclination trades
• This process establishes a range of potential altitudes and inclinations, from which
we can select one or more alternatives.

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 Orbit Design

Asses Launch and Retrieval or Disposal Options

• The launch vehicle contributes strongly to mission costs, and ultimately will limit
the amount of mass that can be placed in an orbit of any given altitude.
• Spacecraft that will reenter the atmosphere must either do controlled reentry,
burn-up in the atmosphere or break up into harmless pieces.
• If the spacecraft will not reenter the atmosphere in a reasonable time we must still
dispose of it at end of its useful life so it is not hazardous to other spacecraft

Evaluate Constellation Growth and Replenishment

• An important characteristic of any satellite constellation is growth, replenishment

and graceful degradation.
• Constellations should be at least partly serviceable with small satellite numbers
• Graceful degradation means that if one satellite fails, the remaining satellites
provide needed services at a reduced level rather than a total loss of service.

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 Orbit Design

Create ΔV budget

• To numerically evaluate the cost of an orbit, we must create a ΔV budget for the Orbit
• This then becomes the major component of the propellant budget

Document and Iterate

A key component of orbit or constellation design is documenting the mission requirements

used to define the orbit, the reasons for selecting the orbit, and the numerical values of the
selected orbit parameters.

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 Constellation Design

Constellation Design

• In designing a constellation, we apply all of the criteria for designing a single satellite
orbit. Thus, we need to consider whether each satellite is launchable, survivable, and
properly in view of ground stations or relay satellites.

Principal Design Variables

 Number of Satellites
 Constellation Pattern
 Minimum Elevation Angle
 Altitude
 Number of Orbit Planes
 Collision Avoidance Parameters (Maximize the inter-satellite distances at plane crossing)

Secondary Design Variables

 Inclination
 Between Plane Phasing (Select best coverage among discrete phasing options)
 Eccentricity
 Size of Station-keeping Box
 End-of-Life-Strategy (Elimination of orbital debris)

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Constellation Design

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 Space Environment

Space Environment

• The near-Earth space and atmospheric environments strongly influence the performance
and lifetime of operational space systems by affecting their size, weight, complexity, and
cost.

• Operating under vacuum-like conditions can pose significant problems for many
spacecraft systems

• At lower orbits a spacecraft will be bombarded by the atmosphere at orbital velocities on

the order of-8 km/s. Interactions between the satellite and the neutral atmosphere can
erode satellite surfaces, affect the thermal and electrical properties of the surface, and
possibly degrade spacecraft structures.

 The solar cycle

 The gravitational field
 The upper atmosphere
 Plasma and magnetic filed
 Radiation – Van Allen belt, Solar particle, Cosmic rays

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 Space Environment

The solar cycle

• The solar activity is seen to vary with an 11-year cycle.

• The mean daily flux at 10.7 cm wavelength in units of 10-22 W/m2
• Variation are substantial on a day-to-day basis and that one solar maximum may have
levels that vary dramatically from other solar maxima.
• Space environment effects are strongly dependent on the solar cycle

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 Space Environment

The gravitational field and Microgravity

• Microgravity also called weightlessness, free fall or zero-g is the nearly complete
absence of any of the effects of gravity.

• Microgravity leads to a wide variety of chemical manufacturing processes that cannot

occur on the surface of the Earth. Heavier particles in a solution do not settle out and
bubbles do not rise to the surface.

• This allows uniform, universal mixing and permits chemical reactions to occur that
could not occur on Earth because separation or weight collapse would hinder completion
of the reaction or hardening of the material.

• The rotating spacecraft produces “artificial gravity ” due to centrifugal force.

• Tidal forces, sometimes called gravity-gradient forces, come about because of very
small differences in the force of gravity over an extended object.

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 Space Environment

The Upper Atmospher

• The upper atmosphere affects spacecraft by generating aerodynamic drag, lift and
heat, and through the chemically corrosive effects of highly reactive elements such as
atomic oxygen.

• Strong drag occurs in dense atmospheres, and satellites with perigees below ~120 km
have such short lifetimes that their orbit have no practical importance.

• Above ~600 km, on the other hand, drag is so weak that orbits usually last more than
the satellites' operational lifetimes.

• Altitudes between 120 and 600 km are within the Earth's thermosphere, the region above
90 km where the absorption of extreme ultraviolet radiation from the Sun results in a
very rapid increase in temperature with altitude.

• Heating due to extreme ultraviolet radiation and its solar cycle variation has the
greatest effect on satellite lifetimes.

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 Space Environment

The Upper Atmospher

• Atomic oxygen, the predominant atmospheric constituent from ~200 km to ~600km is

another important part of the upper atmosphere’s effect on space systems.

• This form of oxygen can react with thin organic films, advanced composites and
metallized surfaces, resulting in degraded sensor performance.

Example

• Kapton, a material commonly used for insulation and seals, erodes at a rate of
approximately 2.8 μm for every 1024 atoms/m2 of atomic oxygen fluence, (

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 Space Environment

Plasmas, The Magnetic Field and Spacecraft Charging

• The Earth’s magnetic field is roughly dipolar; that is

– local magnetic field intensity

– the magnetic latitude
R – radial distance measured in Earth radii (RE)
B0 – magnetic field at the equator at the Earth’s surface
B0 = RE =0.30 gauss

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 Space Environment

Plasmas, The Magnetic Field and Spacecraft Charging

• Through the interaction between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field,
some of the solar wind's kinetic energy is converted to magnetic energy stored in the
magnetotail.

• Because this energy cannot build up indefinitely, magnetic substorms dissipate it from
time to time.

• These substorms produce an energized plasma (5 to 50 keV) that is injected toward the
Earth

• This hot plasma can extend into geosynchronous orbits, charging the surface of the any
spacecraft within it to high negative voltages.

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 Space Environment

Radiation and Associated Degradation

Trapped Radiation

• The Van Allen radiation belts are a permanent hazard to orbiting spacecraft. They
consist of electrons and ions (mostly protons) having energies greater than 30 keV and
are distributed nonuniformly within the magnetosphere.

• These ions can harm space systems differently than penetrating radiation. By
depositing their energy in the spacecraft skin, the lower-energy ions can cause a
temperature rise sufficient to significantly enhance the infrared background.

• These same low-energy ions can degrade the effectiveness of paints and protective glass
by breaking chemical bonds in their surface layers.

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 Space Environment – Trapped Radiation

Trapped Radiation
Omni-directional flux

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 Space Environment - Radiation and Associated Degradation

Solar Particle Events (SPEs)

• Solar particle events (SPEs) occur in association with solar flares

• SPEs are rapid increases in the flux of energetic particles (~1 MeV to above 1 GeV)
lasting from several hours to several days

• SPEs degrade solar array elements, increase background noise in many types of electro-
optical sensors, and cause illnesses in astronauts

Transition Region and Coronal

Explorer (TRACE)

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 Space Environment - Radiation and Associated Degradation

Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR)

• GCR are particles which reach the vicinity of the Earth from outside the solar system.

• The number and type of nuclei in these particles are proportional to those in solar system
material

• Cosmic rays pose a serious hazard because a single particle can cause a malfunction in
common electronic components such as Random Access Memory (RAM),
microprocessors, and hexfet power transistors.

• When a single passing particle causes this malfunction, we call radiation effects single-
event phenomena, or SEP.

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