Hughes, S.P. (1999) Formation Flying Performance Measures for Earth-Pointing Missions. MSc Thesis, Blacksburg, Virginia.

has been cited by the following article:

• TITLE: Analytical Solution for Formation Flying Problem near Equatorial-Circular Reference Orbit

  AUTHORS: Shaheera A. Altalhi, Magdy Ibrahim El Saftawy

  KEYWORDS: Invariant Relative Orbits, Formation Flying Satellites, Relative Motion

  JOURNAL NAME: International Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol.9 No.3, August 30, 2019

  ABSTRACT: The relative motion between multiple satellites is a developed technique with many applications. Formation-flying missions use the relative motion dynamics in their design. In this work, the motion in invariant relative orbits is considered under the effects of second-order zonal harmonics in an equatorial orbit. The Hamiltonian framework is used to formulate the problem. All the possible conditions of the invariant relative motion are obtained with different inclinations of the follower satellite orbits. These second-order conditions warrantee the drift rates keeping two, or more, neighboring orbits from drifting apart. The conditions have been modeled. All the possibilities of choosing mean elements of the leader satellite orbit and differences in momenta between leader and follower satellites’ orbits are presented.