Low-earth-orbit maintenance for improving remote sensing in China

Remote sensing requires that orbit parameters of satellites, whose orbit altitude is less than 1000 km, must be maintained strictly at specified values. These orbit parameter requirements for specific problem here are: orbit inclination should not deviate more than 0.01° in 98.8°; semi-major should deviate less than 1 km in 850 km; eccentricity should be less than 3.4×10^-3. The difficulty in satisfying the three requirements lies in that semi-major and eccentricity are coupled, i.e., satisfaction of semi-major requirement leaves eccentricity requirement unsatisfied, and vice versa. The research proposed a simple model which decouples semi-major and eccentricity, i.e., satisfaction can be done at one time without worrying about endless iterations.