Simulation of orbital decay of LEO satellites due to atmospheric drag during magnetic storms

Abstract

In order to understand the effect of geomagnetic activity on the orbits of LEO satellites with different orbital inclinations, we establish a model for the influence of atmospheric drag on the orbital decay of low Earth orbiting (LEO) satellites and simulate the orbital decay of seven LEO satellites during geomagnetic storms. In the simulation, the orbital inclinations of the seven LEO satellites are set to be 30°, 40°,50°, 60°, 70°, 80°, and 88°, respectively. And the initial orbital heights are all 350km. The simulation results show that the seven LEO satellites are affected to different degrees during the geomagnetic storm, satellites with smaller orbital inclinations are more affected. The orbit of the Sat-A satellite with the smallest orbital inclination decreased by 1.794 km during the entire magnetic storm, while the orbit of the Sat-G satellite with the largest orbital inclination decreased by 1.530 km. We compare the local thermospheric atmosphere density on different satellite orbits and found that the atmosphere density on the orbits of LEO satellites with smaller orbital inclinations is greater, which means that LEO satellites with small orbital inclinations experience greater atmospheric drag. We deduce that the reason for this phenomenon is related to the density distribution of the thermospheric background atmosphere.