Related papers: Fully analytical propagator for lunar satellite or…
The present report summarizes the main theory and implementation steps associated with SELENA (SEmi-anaLytical intEgrator for a luNar Artificial satellite), i.e. the semi-analytical propagator for lunar satellite orbits developed in the…
We have developed a semi-analytical theory for low-altitude lunar orbits with the aim of verifying what the minimum order of the gravitational model to be considered should be in order to produce realistic results that can be applied to the…
Previous studies of the response of the Moon to gravitational waves have been carried out using analytical or semi-analytical models assuming ideal lunar structures. Such models are advantageous for their high-speed calculation but fail to…
Fast and precise propagation of satellite orbits is required for mission design, orbit determination in support of operations and payload data analysis. This demand must also comply with the different accuracy requirements set by a growing…
This paper is concerned with the comparison of semi-analytical and non-averaged propagation methods for Earth satellite orbits. We analyse the total integration error for semi-analytical methods and propose a novel decomposition into…
In this paper, we study the long-term (time scale of several years) orbital evolution of lunar satellites under the sole action of natural forces. In particular, we focus on secular resonances, caused either by the influence of the…
Traditional analytical theories of celestial mechanics are not well-adapted when dealing with highly elliptical orbits. On the one hand, analytical solutions are quite generally expanded into power series of the eccentricity and so limited…
This paper aims to obtain an analytic approximation to the evolution of circular orbits governed by the Earth's $J_2$ and the luni-solar gravitational perturbations. Assuming that the lunar orbital plane coincides with the ecliptic plane,…
Normal form stability estimates are a basic tool of Celestial Mechanics for characterizing the long-term stability of the orbits of natural and artificial bodies. Using high-order normal form constructions, we provide three different…
This paper is related to our previous works [1][2] on the error estimate of the averaging technique, for systems with one fast angular variable. In the cited references, a general method (of mixed analytical and numerical type) has been…
Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) measurements are crucial for advanced exploration of the laws of fundamental gravitational physics and geophysics. Current LLR technology allows us to measure distances to the Moon with a precision approaching 1…
When dealing with satellites orbiting a central body on a highly elliptical orbit, it is necessary to consider the effect of gravitational perturbations due to external bodies. Indeed, these perturbations can become very important as soon…
The Moon has been regarded as a natural Weber bar capable of amplifying gravitational waves (GWs) for detecting events across a wide range of frequencies. However, accurately determining the amplification effects remains challenging due to…
We formulate the lunar cratering distribution and verify the cratering asymmetries generated by the main-belt asteroids (MBAs) as well as the near-Earth objects (NEOs). Based on a planar model that excludes the terrestrial and lunar…
In this paper, we develop a high-precision satellite orbit determination model for satellites orbiting the Earth. Solving this model entails numerically integrating the differential equation of motion governing a two-body system, employing…
Numerical integration of orbit trajectories for a large number of initial conditions and for long time spans is computationally expensive. Semi-analytical methods were developed to reduce the computational burden. An elegant and widely used…
The rapid increase in the deployment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, catering to diverse applications such as communication, Earth observation, environmental monitoring, and scientific research, has significantly amplified the…
In this paper we examine the possibility of testing the equivalence principle, in its weak form, by analyzing the orbital motion of a pair of artificial satellites of different composition moving along orbits of identical shape and size in…
We provide a detailed derivation of the analytical expansion of the lunar and solar disturbing functions. Although there exist several papers on this topic, many derivations contain mistakes in the final expansion or rather (just) in the…
Fast and precise propagation of satellite orbits is required for mission design, orbit determination and payload data analysis. We present a method to improve the computational performance of numerical propagators and simultaneously…