Description The Aerospace Centre of Excellence in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering has developed a long term orbit propagator called CALYPSO and a long term attitude propagator called SAAP. SAAP and CALYPSO have been validated against a number of other analysis tools and can already cover a number of orbital scenarios.
In order to improve the range of cases that SAAP and CALYPSO can handle the following developments are required:
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Include the orbital perturbation due to the J22 term of the gravity field
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Include the coordinate transformation between the Earth Centred Inertial reference frame and the Earth Centred Earth Fixed reference frame.
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Include an analytical expression for the coupling between the gravitational perturbation due to J2 and drag.
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Couple SAAP with CALYPSO
These extensions would allow a more precise propagation of satellite's orbits and attitude that is fundamental to predict orbit decay, orbit conjunctions and possible collisions. Given the growing interest in the UK and in particular in Scotland to put in orbit large scale constellations, there is the need to have tools and expertise to predict the evolution of the space environment as the traffic increases.
This project will provide the student with a lot of key skills and knowledge that are fundamental in the space sector.
A good command of Matlab is required. Also a knowledge of Julia will need to be developed during the project
Key Objectives
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The key objectives of this project are:
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Couple SAAP wtih CALYPSO
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To browse the literature for J22 (analytical) equations in non-singular equinoctial elements
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To derive/implement analytical equations for J22
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To investigate possible ways to analytically include the transformation of the gravitational accelerations from ECI to ECEF
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To derive analytical integrals for the J2-drag coupling
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Apply the tool to relevant cases like STRATHcube
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To write in Latex the analytical expressions for the integrals that are now available only in Matlab and Mathematica