Design Method of Orthogonal Circular Orbit Satellite Constellation Based on Geometric Analysis

Orthogonal circular orbit constellation combines the advantages of polar orbit constellation and equatorial orbit constellation to achieve continuous global coverage, improving the coverage performance of pure polar orbit constellation at low and middle latitudes to some extent. However, the traditional design method of orthogonal circular orbit constellation is to divide the coverage of polar orbit constellation and equatorial orbit constellation by latitude lines, which is too rough to fully utilize geometric properties of two constellations. To solve this problem, according to the motion features and coverage features of the polar orbit constellation satellites, this paper analyzes the features of the coverage gaps generated in the areas that do not meet the continuous coverage requirements, and integrates the characteristics of the equatorial orbit constellation satellites to propose a design method of orthogonal circular orbit constellation based on geometric analysis. By using the analytical method, the parameters of the half-width angle for minimum ground coverage of the equatorial satellite is determined. The typical constellation scheme is given to compare with the traditional design method of orthogonal circular orbit constellation, and the effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by the STK simulations.