Impulsive ground-track adjustment for assigned final orbit

This paper provides analytical approximate solutions to the impulsive coplanar ground-track adjustment problem for an assigned final orbit (e.g., repeated ground-track orbit) whose ground track passes over a user-specified Earth site. A three-impulse method associated with bielliptical transfer and four-impulse methods based on the optimal slewing of the apse line are proposed for coplanar circular and noncoaxial elliptical orbits, respectively. All impulses are required to be tangential. A semi-analytical method isproposed to obtain the longitude difference for the assigned ground-site latitude. Then, approximate solutions are obtained by solving a quartic equation in a high-fidelity model. Numerical examples with both circular and elliptical orbits are provided to validate this approach for one-day repeated ground-track final orbits.