This paper intends to show some special types of orbits around Jupiter based on the mean element theory, including stationary orbits, sun-synchronous orbits, orbits at the critical inclination, and repeating ground track orbits. A gravity model concerning only the perturbations of and terms is used here. Compared with special orbits around the Earth, the orbit dynamics differ greatly: (1) There do not exist longitude drifts on stationary orbits due to non-spherical gravity since only and terms are taken into account in the gravity model. All points on stationary orbits are degenerate equilibrium points. Moreover, the satellite will oscillate in the radial and North-South directions after a sufficiently small perturbation of stationary orbits. (2) The inclinations of sun-synchronous orbits are always bigger than 90 degrees, but smaller than those for satellites around the Earth. (3) The critical inclinations are no-longer independent of the semi-major axis and eccentricity of the orbits. The results show that if the eccentricity is small, the critical inclinations will decrease as the altitudes of orbits increase; if the eccentricity is larger, the critical inclinations will increase as the altitudes of orbits increase. (4) The inclinations of repeating ground track orbits are monotonically increasing rapidly with respect to the altitudes of orbits.
ACS Style
Yongjie Liu; Yu Jiang; Hengnian Li; Hui Zhang. Some Special Types of Orbits around Jupiter.
Aerospace 2021, 8, 183 .
AMA Style
Yongjie Liu, Yu Jiang, Hengnian Li, Hui Zhang. Some Special Types of Orbits around Jupiter.
Aerospace. 2021; 8
(7):183.
Chicago/Turabian Style
Yongjie Liu; Yu Jiang; Hengnian Li; Hui Zhang. 2021.
"Some Special Types of Orbits around Jupiter."
Aerospace 8, no. 7:
183.