Applications of Global Ultraviolet Imaging Data to the Prediction of Satellite Drag in Low-Earth Orbit

Details Applications of Global Ultraviolet Imaging Data to the Prediction of Satellite Drag in Low-Earth Orbit Applications of Global Ultraviolet Imaging Data to the Prediction of Satellite Drag in Low-Earth Orbit

Dec 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agufmsa31a..14w&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001, abstract #SA31A-14

Physics

0300 Atmospheric Composition And Structure, 0310 Airglow And Aurora, 0355 Thermosphere: Composition And Chemistry

Scientific paper

We investigate the potential for the application of ultraviolet imaging data to the prediction of satellite drag in the LEO environment. The data under consideration will be products of the Special Sensor-Scanning Ultraviolet Imager (SSUSI, a component of the DMSP satellite instrument suite) and the Global Ultraviolet Imager (GUVI, to be launched on the TIMED spacecraft). Ideally we would have instantaneous and all-encompassing knowledge of the global thermospheric total density and composition at satellite altitudes. In situ techniques provide an instantaneous snapshot at one particular altitude while remote sensing observations produce profiles that can have a significant (several hundred km) horizontal contribution function. Satellite techniques are further limited by virtue of obtaining data at one local solar time. We have been investigating the use of far ultraviolet or FUV (115 to 180 nm) spectral images to map changes in the ratio of the column number density of atomic oxygen to molecular nitrogen (commonly referred to as the ``O to N2 ratio''). In this paper we examine the possible application of such maps of the column density ratio to calculations of the orbit-averaged drag a satellite might experience, and the potential to produce timely alerts in the event that significant perturbations in orbital drag are predicted. Since most LEO satellites have non-circular orbits, satellite drag comes primarily from that part of the orbit near perigee. The orbital drag may thus exhibit a strong local time dependence due to the large amplitude of the variation in total number density (factor of ~ 2) in the diurnal tide around 400 km altitude. By examining the statistical relationships between total air density and the O/N2 ratio for the tidal component of the density variations, we will be able to impose local time corrections to the satellite drag calculations with the use of measured O/N2 ratios.

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