The Geometry Numerical Simulation and Analysis for Moon-Based Earth Observation

Abstract

Large-scale geoscience phenomena are increasingly attracting more attention because of their great scientific and social significance. However, many existing earth observation systems lack the ability to conduct long-term continuous observations at a regional-to-global scale because of spatial and temporal coverage limitations and systematic bias. Recently, the Moon, the unique Earth's natural satellite, was proposed as a new platform for earth observation of large-scale geoscience phenomena. However, the geometry relationship between the Sun, Earth and Moon was the precondition to understand the moon-based earth observation. In this work, a simulation system of moon-based earth observation was developed based on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory ephemerides, the reference systems transformation, and which was implemented under the Microsoft. NET framework using C# language. In this system, we will carry out the following studies: (1) The position and attitude change rule of moon-based platform. The position and posture of moon are the main factors that affect the Earth observation, which needs to be studied based on the relative motion law and the moon-based platform simulation system. Then, we will study the regularity of the position and the attitude periodicity of the moon-based platform. (2) The regularity of moon-based platform for Earth observation. Based on the proposed moon-based Earth observation simulation system, the changes of the solar angle, observation angle, observation range, sub-satellite point position, twilight line, oblique distance and observation period of the typical moon-based Earth observation sensor are analyzed.