This article reports an investigation of the effect of solar radiation pressure on the motion of an artificial satellite. The theory has been applied to the orbit of the Vanguard I satellite, and is found to produce significant perturbations in the perigee height of that satellite. In the case of a satellite with a large ratio of area to mass the major terms introduced by solar radiation pressure can reduce the perigee distance at the rate of 1 to 2 km per day, so that the lifetime of the satellite will become considerably shorter than it would be without this effect.
Calculations of the solar and lunar effects on highly eccentric satellite orbits show that the sun and the moon may cause large changes in perigee height over extended periods of time. The amplitude and sign of the perigee height variations depend on the orbit parameters and the hour of launch; for a typical orbit and various choices of launch time, the perigee height will either rise or fall at the rate of 1 km/day over the course of several months. These results may be significant in deciding the launch conditions for future satellites with highly eccentric orbits.
The disturbing function for the long‐period lunisolar effects is developed into a series of polynomials in the components of the vectorial elements in the direction to the disturbing body. This development is convergent for all eccentricities and all inclinations. The equations are established for the variation of elements in a form suitable for the use of numerical integration and for the development of the perturbations into trigonometric series with numerical coefficients. An application of Milankovich's theory of perturbations leads to the equations for perturbed elements in which the small numerical divisors, the sine of the inclination and the eccentricity, are not present. These new equations, like the equations for canonical elements, have a symmetrical form and a wider range of applicability than the equations for elliptic elements.
The effect of solar radiation pressure on the perigee height of satellite 1958ss(2) (Vanguard I) has been considered. Previous consideration of the effect of the third hairmonic and the lunar and solar gravitational perturbations left an unexplained discrepancy between the observed and calculated values of perigee height. The inclusion of the effect of radiation pressure leads to close agreement between the orbit data and the theoretical results for Vanguard I.
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