Choosing the Motion Initial Conditions, Ensuring the Technical Sustainability of Spacecraft Formation Flight

This paper studies passive relative motion of two spacecraft (SC) in one orbital plane taking into account the second zonal harmonic J2 of the Earth gravitational field. Inspector spacecraft moves in the area of the inspection ellipse, in the center of which the target spacecraft is placed. Inspection motion for different orbits is analyzed. Method for selecting the initial conditions of both spacecraft motion that ensure the permissible variation of the inspector SC relative trajectory from nominal one at the given time interval is proposed. Results of the numerical study support the computed stability conditions, which make it possible to reduce the fuel costs for inspection motion.