Studies in the application of recurrence relations to special perturbation methods

A set of differential equations is derived that has a number of advantages in special perturbation work. In particular, the equations remain valid for all values of the orbital eccentricity and inclination including zero. They are therefore applicable to parabolic- and hyperbolic-type orbits as well as elliptic-type; a scheme for use when the orbit is rectilinear or nearly so is provided. The equations are also much simpler in form than the Lagrange planetary equations and the transformations of the osculating elements to and from the rectangular coordinates are straightforward.     

Remarks on the numerical integration of near-parabolic orbits

For near-parabolic orbits the distinction between coordinates and elements disappears provided the KS-technique is used. In KS-variables a pure parabolic motion is described by linear functions. Advantage is taken of that fact for establishing numerical procedures in perturbed near-parabolic cases.     

Über periodische Bahnen im eingeschränkten Dreikörperproblem und in der Nähe der Kommensurabilitäten vom Typus (k + 1)/k

The authors, collaborating during the winter 1966/67, performed numerical investigations on form and character of periodic solutions of the restricted problem of three bodies in the Sun–Jupiter-System and in the neighbourhood of the resonances of the (k + 1)/k type. The principal part of these computations which were achieved using a fast IBM-computer refers to the cases 2/1 (Hecuba-gap) and 3/2 (Hilda-group). The results gave new insight into the genealogy of periodic orbits in the regions which do not contain solutions of Poincaré's first genre. Moreover, L. Carpenter tried to develop an analytical theory (here not explicitely described) which leads to convergent trigonometric series for the coordinates of periodic orbits with restricted eccentricities, using the method of general perturbations in rectangular coordinates recently published by P. Musen and himself.     

Unified State Model theory and application in Astrodynamics

The Unified State Model is a method for expressing orbits using a set of seven elements. The elements consist of a quaternion and three parameters based on the velocity hodograph. A complete derivation of the original model is given in addition to two proposed modifications. Both modifications reduce the number of state elements from seven to six by replacing the quaternion with either modified Rodrigues parameters or the Exponential Map. Numerical simulations comparing the original Unified State Model, the Unified State Model with modified Rodrigues parameters, and the Unified State Model with Exponential Map, with the traditional Cartesian coordinates have been carried out. The Unified State Model and its derivatives outperform the Cartesian coordinates for all orbit cases in terms of accuracy and computational speed, except for highly eccentric perturbed orbits. The performance of the Unified State Model is exceptionally better for the case of orbits with continuous low-thrust propulsion with CPU simulation time being an order of magnitude lower than for the simulation using Cartesian coordinates. This makes the Unified State Model an excellent state propagator for mission optimizations.     

Accurate computation of highly eccentric satellite orbits

For computing highly eccentric (e0.9) Earth satellite orbits with special perturbation methods, a comparison is made between different schemes, namely the direct integration of the equations of motion in Cartesian coordinates, changes of the independent variable, use of a time element, stabilization and use of regular elements. A one-step and a multi-step integration are also compared.It is shown that stabilization and regularization procedures are very helpful for non or smoothly perturbed orbits. In practical cases for space research where all perturbations are considered, these procedures are no longer so efficient. The recommended method in these cases is a multi-step integration of the Cartesian coordinates with a change of the independent variable defining an analytical step size regulation. However, the use of a time element and a stabilization procedure for the equations of motion improves the accuracy, except when a small step size is chosen.     

Application of the stroboscopic method to the stellar three-body problem

The stellar three-body problem has been approached by directly integrating the equations of motion in the orbital elements. The problem is set up in a barycentric chain with the orbits as perturbed ellipses.The integration was performed using the semi-analytical stroboscopic method, which is particularly useful for solving differential systems that depend on several slow variables and one fast, angular variable. Perturbation theory is applied and the solution for a particular order is obtained by way of successive approximations on the fundamental period of the fast variable.     

Construction of a general planetary theory of the first order

All the necessary formulae for constructing a general solution for the motion of a planet, in rectangular coordinates, at the first order of the disturbing masses, in purely literal form in eccentricities and inclinations, are given. The authors present the transformation formulae in the two-body problem which give the correspondence between the constants of integration introduced in the theory and the classical keplerian elements. The practical elaboration of the algorithm and some partial results for the couple of planets Jupiter and Saturn are described.     

Parallel initial orbit determination using angles-only observation pairs

We propose a type of admissible-region analysis for track initiation in multi-satellite problems when angles are the primary observable. Pairs of optical observations are used to calculate candidate orbits via a Lambert solver by hypothesizing range values. The method is attractive because it allows multiple levels of parallelization of the track-initiation process. Orbital element partitions are introduced to divide the admissible region into smaller search spaces to be processed on individual computer nodes. For a specified rectangular partition in the space of orbital elements, constraints are developed to bound the values of range that will lead to initial orbit hypotheses (data association hypotheses) associated with that partition. These bounds allow us to parallelize the generation of candidate orbits, because each element-space partition can be handled independently of the others. Several constraints are developed and shown to limit the range pair hypotheses effectively to the constrained admissible region based on the orbital element partitions. Examples are provided to highlight the topology of the proposed constraints.     

Perturbation theory in rectangular coordinates

For treating the perturbed two-body problem in rectangular coordinates a new method is developed. The method is based on the reduction of the variational equations of the two-body problem with arbitrary elements to the Jordan system. The equations of perturbed motion rewritten in the quasi-Jordan form are subjected to a transformation excluding fast variables and leading to a system governing the long term evolution of motion. The method may be easily extended to the problem of the heliocentric motion of the major planets. For performing this method on computer it is suitable to use facilities of Poissonian and Keplerian processors.     

Canonical Elements for Collision Orbits

I derive a set of canonical elements that are useful for collision orbits (perihelion distance approaching zero at fixed semimajor axis). The coordinates are the mean anomaly and the two spherical polar angles at aphelion.This revised version was published online in October 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Analytic continuation of quasi-periodic orbits from non-linear periodic modes

A new theory is formulated for the analytic continuation of quasi-periodic orbits from non-linear, periodic modes of a two degree-of-freedom system in rotating coordinates. Formal solutions of the equations of motion are developed in series expansions, with the non-linear modes as reference solutions. Conditions are determined on the existence and boundedness of the time-dependent coefficients of the velocity field. Boundedness properties of the orbits are specified by an orbit function derived from the Jacobi integral.     

Nonlinear theory of secular perturbations of satellites of an oblate planet

Anonlinear analytical theory of secular perturbations in the problem of the motion of a systemof small bodies around a major attractive center has been developed. Themutual perturbations of the satellites and the influence of the oblateness of the central body are taken into account in the model. In contrast to the classical Laplace-Lagrange theory based on linear equations for Lagrange elements, the third-degree terms in orbital eccentricities and inclinations are taken into account in the equations. The corresponding improvement of the solution turns out to be essential in studying the evolution of orbits over long time intervals. A program inC has been written to calculate the corrections to the fundamental frequencies of the solution and the third-degree secular perturbations in orbital eccentricities and inclinations. The proposed method has been applied to investigate the motion of the major Uranian satellites. Over time intervals longer than 100 years, allowance for the nonlinear terms in the equations is shown to give corrections to the coordinates of Miranda on the order of the orbital eccentricity, which is several thousand kilometers in linear measure. For other satellites, the effect of allowance for the nonlinear terms turns out to be smaller. Obviously, when a general analytical theory of motion for the major Uranian satellites is constructed, the nonlinear terms in the equations for the secular perturbations should be taken into account.     

Elliptic Anomaly in Constructing Long-Term and Short-Term Dynamical Theories

The techniques of Brumberg and Brumberg (1999) based on the use of elliptic anomaly are specified in this paper in two aspects. The iteration technique (Broucke, 1969) to construct short-term semi-analytical theories of motion in rectangular coordinates in lines of Encke and Hill is reelaborated in terms of elliptic anomaly resulting in extending this technique for high-eccentricity orbits. In constructing long-term semi-analytical theories the key point is to integrate trigonometric functions of several angular arguments related to time by different differential expressions. This problem is reduced in the paper to linear algebraic recurrence relations admitting efficient solution by iterations.     

Canonical Elements for Öpik Theory

The purpose of this paper is to find a set of canonical elements to use within the framework of Öpik theory of close encounters of a small body with a planet (Öpik, Interplanetary Encounters, 1976). Since the small body travels along a planetocentric hyperbola during the close approach and Öpik formulas are valid, without approximations, only at collision, we derive a set of canonical elements for hyperbolic collision orbits (eccentricity e → 1⁺, semi-major axis a fixed) and then we introduce the unperturbed velocity of the small body and the distance covered along the asymptote as a new canonically conjugate pair of orbital elements. An interesting result would be to get a canonical set containing the coordinates in the Target Plane (TP), useful for the analysis of the future encounters: in the last part we prove that this is not possible.     

On the habitability of the OGLE-2006-BLG-109L planetary system

We investigate the dynamics of putative Earth-mass planets in the habitable zone (HZ) of the extrasolar planetary system OGLE-2006-BLG-109L, a close analogue of the Solar system. Our work is inspired by the work of Malhotra & Minton. Using the linear Laplace–Lagrange theory, they identified a strong secular resonance that may excite large eccentricity of orbits in the HZ. However, due to uncertain or unconstrained orbital parameters, the subsystem of Jupiters may be found in a dynamically active region of the phase space spanned by low-order mean-motion resonances. To generalize this secular model, we construct a semi-analytical averaging method in terms of the restricted problem. The secular orbits of large planets are approximated by numerically averaged osculating elements. They are used to calculate the mean orbits of terrestrial planets by means of a high-order analytic secular theory developed in our previous works. We found regions in the parameter space of the problem in which stable, quasi-circular orbits in the HZ are permitted. The excitation of eccentricity in the HZ strongly depends on the apsidal angle of jovian orbits. For some combinations of that angle, eccentricities and semimajor axes consistent with the observations, a terrestrial planet may survive in low eccentric orbits. We also study the effect of post-Newtonian gravity correction on the innermost secular resonance.     

Radius of convergence of Lie series for some elliptic elements

For equatorial orbits about an oblate body, we show that the Lie series for the elliptic elementse,f,l and diverge when the oblateness exceeds a critical multiple of the transformed eccentricity constant. The use of similar truncated series expansions for such elliptic elements by Brouwer accounts for the first-order errors at low eccentricity in his derived coordinates for an artificial satellite.     

Cartography of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">b</Emphasis>-plane of a close encounter I: semimajor axes of post-encounter orbits

Close planetary encounters play an important role in the evolution of the orbits of small Solar system bodies and are usually studied with the help of numerical integrations. Here we study close encounters in the framework of an analytic theory, focusing on the so-called b-plane, which is the plane centred on the planet and perpendicular to the planetocentric velocity at infinity of the small body. As shown in previous papers, it is possible to identify the initial conditions on the b-plane that lead to post-encounter orbits of given semimajor axis. In this paper we exploit analytical relationships between b-plane coordinates and pre-encounter orbital elements and compute the probability of transition to these post-encounter states, and numerically check the validity of the analytic approach.     

On the symmetric difference quotient and its application to the correction of orbits (II). A numerical analysis

In this paper we present, among other things, the numerical analysis of behaviour of ordinary and symmetric difference quotients for some elementary functions, for rectangular coordinates (velocity components) in relation to orbital elements and initial values of coordinates (velocity components) in Keplerian motion.     

New reductions of orbits based upon Chinese ancient cometary records

From 146 B.C. to 1760 A.D., 363 sets of cometary observations for a total 88 different comets were recorded in Chinese Ancient Records of Celestial Phenomena. According to those records, we reduced apparent positions and mean equatorial coordinates (epoch 2000.0) for all more than three times recorded comets. Taking into account the perturbations of all nine planets and using the numerical method of N-body problem, the orbits of correlative comets were calculated. For thirty different comets, new orbits are presented for the first time.