Parallel Orbit Propagation and the Analysis of Satellite Constellations

摘要

This thesis describes the development of a scalable, portable parallel orbitpropagator, with application to the analysis of satellite constellations, The Draper Semianalytic Satellite Theory (DSST) is coupled with the Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) software package to demonstrate the power of the networked computing paradigm. The PVM/DSST is employed to analyze the stability of the 840 satellite Teledesic constellation, as described in the 1994 FCC filing, under real-world perturbations. Combined with genetic algorithm optimization software, the frozen orbit of a satellite in the presence of arbitrary perturbations is easily determined. This concept is extended to automate constellation design for optimal performance.