Orbit design for future SpaceChip swarm missions in a planetary atmosphere

The effect of solar radiation pressure and atmospheric drag on the orbital dynamics of satellites-on-a-chip (SpaceChips) is exploited to design equatorial long-lived orbits about the oblate Earth. The orbit energy gain due to asymmetric solar radiation pressure, considering the Earth's shadow, is used to balance the energy loss due to atmospheric drag. Future missions for a swarm of SpaceChips are proposed, where a number of small devices are released from a conventional spacecraft to perform spatially distributed measurements of the conditions in the ionosphere and exosphere. It is shown that the orbit lifetime can be extended and indeed selected through solar radiation pressure and the end-of-life re-entry of the swarm can be ensured, by exploiting atmospheric drag.

► Effects of solar radiation pressure, aerodynamics drag, Earth's oblateness on SpaceChip's orbit. ► Equilibrium orbits under the effect of these secular perturbations. ► Mission design for distributed measurements of the Earth's atmosphere. ► A number of satellites-on-a-chip (SpaceChips) are released from a carrier spacecraft. ► Swarm lifetime is extended through solar radiation pressure and limited through drag.