2021 Volume 12 Issue 2 Pages 37-44
This study has attained three two-objective optimum designs of constellation orbit with three satellites specialized for regional coverage observation on the Earth's ground. Space transportation is becoming more frequent and less expensive due to actively participating by numerous venture companies. Besides, improvements in manufacturing technology and onboard electronics have rendered it possible to promptly and economically fabricate small satellites. Hence, the market in individual cases by multiple small satellites surges from national projects using a single large satellite. However, the design method of constellation orbit specialized for particular local realm observation, which is the purpose of small-scale projects, has not been established. This study describes the six orbital elements of the satellites as design variables; we express the mission as objective functions coinciding with system performance and operation cost, which we perceive as a multi-/many-objective optimization problem. Consequently, the result indicated the correlation between the objective functions and elucidated the profitable operation principle of the three-satellite constellation quantitatively. Furthermore, we accumulated the improvement perspectives regarding the objective-function definition to represent the mission, which the conclusion would procure the knowledge to conduct sophisticating the next-step problem definition.
