ARTIFICIAL SATELLITES ORBITING PLANETARY SATELLITES: CRITICAL INCLINATION AND HELIO-SYNCHRONOUS ORBITS

摘要

The secular and long periodic orbital behavior of artificial satellites orbiting the Galilean moons of Jupiter are analyzed. Among several characteristics observed for some of the Galilean moons it is of particular interest to note that the coefficients of the gravitational potential J_2 are of the same order of magnitude of C_(22), which means that both of them needs to be considered in the disturbing function. The results show the conditions for nonexistence of the critical inclination and helio-synchronous orbits.