Perturbations of a close-Earth satellite due to sunlight diffusely reflected from the Earth

Precise Model for Small-Body Thermal Radiation Pressure Acting on Spacecraft

“…Even though the thermal radiation pressure effect is fairly small, its perturbing effects are documented on the orbits of Earth orbiting satellites [3,6,7]. Spacecraft orbiting a small body are also subject to TRP perturbations among numerous other perturbing forces, such as perturbations from non-uniform gravitational field, strong perturbing effects of solar radiation pressure, outgassing of the surface volatiles around a comet, and other forces such as errors in the maneuver executions or heat radiation pressure from the spacecraft components.…”

“…The TRP effect has been studied extensively for Earth orbiting spacecraft [2][3][4][5]. Even though the thermal radiation pressure effect is fairly small, its perturbing effects are documented on the orbits of Earth orbiting satellites [3,6,7].…”

“…The geometry of the thermal radiation pressure effect on an orbiter that was formally introduced by Knocke et al [2] for the computation of the Earth radiation pressure acting on Earth orbiting satellites; 2) Computation of the surface temperature of small bodies (asteroids and comets) that is studied extensively by Harris [8], Lebofsky et al [9], and Spencer et al [10] among others; 3) Fourier series expansion of the perturbing solar radiation pressure effects that was established by Scheeres [11], and this work implements this method for the efficient computation of the perturbing effects of thermal radiation pressure acting on spacecraft. In the next two sections, we further detail the ways in which we utilize these methods to assemble a framework for the precise computation of TRP effects on small body orbiting spacecraft.…”

Applications of Geodesy to Geodynamics an International Symposium

“…The longterm perturbations are then obtained by summing the net perturbations at the end of each revolution. This theory has been extended [Lautman, 1977b] to account for the increasing reflectivity of the earth toward the poles; the earth's albedo is assumed to have a latitude dependence given by a = a Q + a sin 2 <(>.…”

“…The perturbations due to solar radiation diffusely reflected from the earth have been treated by Lautman [1977a], who used a semianalytical method based on the assumptions that the satellite is spherically symmetric and that solar radiation is reflected from the earth according to Lambert's law with uniform albedo. Expressions for the radiation-pressure force are developed into series in true anomaly v. The perturbations within a given revolution are obtained analytically by integrating with respect to v, while holding all slowly varying quantities constant.…”