Stability of a planar resonance satellite motion under spatial perturbations

Abstract

The satellite motion relative to the center of mass in a central Newtonian gravitational field on an elliptic orbit is considered. The satellite is a rigid body whose linear dimensions are small compared with the orbit dimensions. We study a special case of planar motion in which the satellite rotates in the orbit plane and performs three revolutions in absolute space per two revolutions of the center of mass in the orbit. Perturbations are assumed to be arbitrary (they can be planar as well as spatial). In the parameter space of the problem, we obtain Lyapunov instability domains and domains of stability in the first approximation. In the latter, we construct third- and fourth-order resonance curves and perform nonlinear stability analysis of the motion on these curves. Stability was studied analytically for small eccentricity values and numerically for arbitrary eccentricity values.