Case Study of Along-Track Separation Maintenance of Distributed Synthetic Aperture Radar Systems in Low Earth Orbits

Abstract

Parasitic SAR formation can be flown at low altitude using smaller satellites and adding potential to conventional SAR mission From the orbital point of view, the main issue is related to the differential aerodynamic drag, which rapidly disrupts the formation. In this ambit, this paper proposes a case study of an along-track distributed parasitic receiver flying in formation with PLATiNO-1. Formation maintenance is the core contribution, highlighting how the active control of both altitude and in-plane anomalies leads to an unfeasible ΔV. Then, the active control of the altitude around the nominal value, which naturally controls anomaly shift, is proposed, modeled, and applied to the presented case study. It is shown that the annual ΔV can be reduced to the m/s range.