SatelliteToolboxSgp4.jl

This package contains the implementation of the SGP4/SDP4 orbit propagator for the Julia language.

Installation

julia> using Pkg
julia> Pkg.install("SatelliteToolboxSgp4")

Usage

First, we need to initialize the structure that contains the information to propagate the orbit using the function sgp4_init. Usually, we pass a TLE to initialize the SGP4 algorithm:

julia> using SatelliteToolboxTle

julia> tle = tle"""
       AMAZONIA 1
       1 47699U 21015A   23083.68657856 -.00000044  10000-8  43000-4 0  9990
       2 47699  98.4304 162.1097 0001247 136.2017 223.9283 14.40814394108652
       """

julia> sgp4d = sgp4_init(tle)

sgp4_init supports the keyword sgp4c to select the constants used to propagate the orbit. It must be an object of type Sgp4Constants. The following constants are already defined in this package:

sgp4c_wgs84: (DEFAULT) Constants based on WGS84 using Float64.
sgp4c_wgs84_f32: Constants based on WGS84 using Float32.
sgp4c_wgs72: Constants based on WGS72 using Float64.
sgp4c_wgs72_f32: Constants based on WGS72 using Float32.

Note The propagator will use the same type of object sgp4c to propagate the orbit. Hence, if one selects sgp4c_wgs84_f32, the SGP4 will compute everything considering Float32 numbers.

The SGP4 can also be initialized by passing the mean elements directly. For more information, see the documentation of the function sgp4_init.

Afterward, we can propagate the orbit using the function sgp4!(sgp4d, t) that propagates the mean elements defined in sgp4d by t minutes. This function returns the position [km] and velocity [km/s] vectors represented in the True Equator, Mean Equinox (TEME) reference frame.

# Propagate the orbit for 10 minutes.
julia> r_teme, v_teme = sgp4!(sgp4d, 10)
([-5300.1473032595195, 2356.780136349037, 4149.0611906521035], [4.464838382952148, -0.5106103512199875, 5.9760603775620815])

Warning We do not use SI units here to keep consistency with the original SGP4/SDP4 algorithms.

The function sgp4(t, args...) creates the propagator and propagates the orbit defined in args... by t minutes. It returns the same information as the function sgp4! and the initialized propagator structure. args... must be the same arguments supported by sgp4!.

julia> r_teme, v_teme, sgp4d = sgp4(10, tle)

julia> r_teme
3-element StaticArraysCore.SVector{3, Float64} with indices SOneTo(3):
 -5300.1473032595195
  2356.780136349037
  4149.0611906521035

julia> v_teme
3-element StaticArraysCore.SVector{3, Float64} with indices SOneTo(3):
  4.464838382952148
 -0.5106103512199875
  5.9760603775620815

sgp4 also supports the same keywords arguments as sgp4!.

We also have the function sgp4_init! that initializes a SGP4 propagator structure in-place, avoiding unnecessary allocations in some cases. For more information, see the function documentation.

References

The code in this package was built using the following references:

[1] Hoots, F. R., Roehrich, R. L (1980). Models for Propagation of NORAD Elements Set. Spacetrack Report No. 3.
[2] Vallado, D. A., Crawford, P., Hujsak, R., Kelso, T. S (2006). Revisiting Spacetrack Report #3: Rev1. AIAA.
[3] SGP4 Source code of STRF, which the C code was converted by Paul. S. Crawford and Andrew R. Brooks.