Temporal patterns of solar eclipses on areostationary relay satellites

Mars Areostationary Relay Satellites are considered robust candidates to meet the telecommunications needs of the coming set of Mars science missions. Orbital station-keeping manoeuvres are required to compensate natural perturbations on the areostationary orbit. This paper deals on the pattern description of solar eclipses in the areostationary orbit to allow to test the constrain imposed by the impossibility to perform manoeuvres at the eclipse times. We present here the models used to characterize the two eclipse epochs around the spring and autumn equinoxes over a Martian year. In average, each eclipse season lasts 90 sols in eclipse with a daily maxima duration of about 1 h 18 min plus 2 min  54 s of penumbra. Temporal duration of solar eclipses with different values near to zero inclination and different satellite orbit nodes has been also analyzed.