Investigation of injection errors on the mission and life analysis of a satellite

This paper presents a practical approach for investigating the effects of launcher's injection errors on the initial orbit establishment and satellite mission life. There are several uncertainties associated with launching a satellite in its nominal orbit. Any error in delivering the satellite to its orbit, which can be modeled in spherical parameters (SPs), could potentially cause some deviation in the nominal orbit usually defined by a set of classical parameters (CPs). Through a Monte-Carlo simulation, the deviations of CPs with respect to the nominal predetermined CPs are obtained. In addition the effects of these initial injection errors on the satellite mission life has been further investigated while considering several key perturbing factors such as: gravity harmonics of the Earth, Lunisolar gravitational attractions, radiation pressure effects as well as atmospheric drag effects for a three year period of satellite's life.