Analysis of Orbit Uncertainty Propagation Using Jet Transport

This chapter studies the application of Jet Transport (JT) to the propagation of geostationary trajectory uncertainties under four dominant perturbations: Solar radiation pressure, Earth’s non-spherical gravity potential, and luni-solar gravitational attractions. A basic scheme is considered and implemented in several coordinate representations and with two kinds of expansions: Taylor and Chebyshev. Taking into account the size of the uncertainty neighborhood, as well as the order and time steps of the integration schemes, a large amount of combinations of the above factors are simulated. A series of look-up tables, with recommendations on the best options to address the propagation, are given.