Development of an Orbital Trajectory Analysis Tool

Since Thailand successfully launched the first earth observation satellite (Thaichote) in 2008, the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) has started developing an orbit analysis tool called “EMERALD” to be used for the current and future mission planned by GISTDA. In this paper, we present the development of a satellite orbit control maneuver, which is one of the analysis tools, by providing essential parameters for an orbital trajectory analysis and design. The algorithms are developed and programmed in a convenient graphical user interface (GUI). The results can guarantee a mission and design a desired orbital mission by calculating suitable maneuver parameters to correct the ground track (GT) and local solar time (LST) under control window including the transfer orbit for the good quality of the mission data. The validation results are in good agreement with Quartz++, which is a flight dynamics software developed by EADS ASTRIUM.