Numerical investigation of aerodynamic properties and stability of satellites

Abstract

Satellites orbiting Earth at very low earth orbit (VLEO) provide benefits such as increased resolution in optical payloads, reduced costs of launch and enhanced use of air-breathing propulsion and specular materials. However, operating in such conditions poses a unique set of operational challenges in the form of perturbations from the gas surface interactions between the satellite body and the environment. With an increasing commercial and military interest in VLEO satellites and market value year on year, it is a worthwhile investment to investigate and understand the challenges faced by VLEO satellites. To this end, this project models the drag of different satellite shapes using a test particle Monte Carlo solver, eventually deriving an optimized satellite shape with a nose. To do so, software developments to the analysis tools were conducted. Two case studies were conducted using a general mission analysis tool, an orbit propagation solver by NASA, to quantify the improvements between the optimized satellite design and a generic cube satellite.