An analytical method for satellite orbit prediction *

Orbit prediction of artificial satellites is a key link in space surveillance and real-time tracking. Because of the large number of objects to be tracked and because the required precision is not too high, the analytical method is often used in this connection. Such a method is given in this paper. Here, the periodic variations resulting from the earth's non-spherical gravitational perturbation are directly expressed in the satellite's position and velocity in rectangular coordinates, which are given by the mean elements at the prediction time. Thus, the method avoids the singularities occurring when computing the periodic terms in the variations of the elements. It places no special requirements on the choice of the elements and can be used for various kinds of orbit. The computing program and software is simple, and the prediction efficiency is raised.