Abstract In analogy with geostationary satellites, an areostationary satellite (a stationary satellite of Mars) will tend to drift in longitude, and in fact, it will tend to oscillate like a pendulum around two stable longitudinal points. In this article we provide a first-order analysis of such motion and provide estimates of the locations of the equilibrium points, the period of libration (130 days for small amplitudes), and the amount of corrective station keeping Δv needed to counteract such drift.


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    Title :

    Technical Note: Perturbations on a Stationary Satellite by the Longitude-Dependent Terms in Mars’ Gravitational Field


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2009-10-01


    Size :

    15 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English