Reentry Time Prediction Using Atmospheric Density Corrections

Abstract

Errors in the upper atmosphere density models have a significant influence on the accuracy of orbit prediction and, specifically, on the accuracy of the prediction of the reentry time of space objects. The determination of current time corrections to the atmosphere density and their use in orbit prediction are proposed as a method for increasing the accuracy of reentry time prediction. The potential effect of increasing the accuracy of space object reentry time prediction, associated with accounting for the corrections to the Naval Research Laboratory MSIS-00 atmosphere density model, is estimated for space objects having both spherical and nonspherical shapes. The results show that the reentry time predictions obtained using this approach are significantly improved. The improvement is better for spherical objects than arbitrary shaped objects due to the time varying nature of the ballistic coefficient of arbitrary shaped objects. The use of the atmospheric density corrections provides insight into the time variations of individual space object aerodynamic characteristics and allows their use in predicting the reentry time.