DROMO propagator revisited

Abstract

In the year 2000 an in-house orbital propagator called DROMO (Pelaez et al. in Celest Mech Dyn Astron 97:131–150, 2007. doi: 10.1007/s10569-006-9056-3 ) was developed by the Space Dynamics Group of the Technical University of Madrid, based in a set of redundant variables including Euler–Rodrigues parameters. An original deduction of the DROMO propagator is carried out, underlining its close relation with the ideal frame concept introduced by Hansen (Abh der Math-Phys Cl der Kon Sachs Ges der Wissensch 5:41–218, 1857). Based on the very same concept, Deprit (J Res Natl Bur Stand Sect B Math Sci 79B(1–2):1–15, 1975) proposed a formulation for orbit propagation. In this paper, similarities and differences with the theory carried out by Deprit are analyzed. Simultaneously, some improvements are introduced in the formulation, that lead to a more synthetic and better performing propagator. Also, the long-term effect of the oblateness of the primary is studied in terms of DROMO variables, and new numerical results are presented to evaluate the performance of the method.