Research on Long-Term Orbit Propagation for Space Debris in LEO

Space debris long-term orbit propagation is one of the main problems for the space debris environment models. The evolution of space debris in low Earth orbit (LEO) is determined by a complex interplay of different perturbations. The aim of this paper is to investigate the long-term effects of the most dominating perturbations: Earth geopotential effects, atmospheric drag, luni-solar perturbations and solar radiation pressure. The atmospheric drag is the major non-gravitational perturbation in LEO. This article provides an average method of numerical integration on one revolution for rotating and stationary atmosphere, and then one can make use of various atmospheric densities to calculate the orbital evolution. Using this method, we have analyzed the effects of rotating and stationary atmospheric drag perturbation on orbital lifetime. The results show the effects of solar activity and geomagnetic index on orbital evolution are obvious. The lifetime difference in rotating atmosphere is mostly depending on inclinations of space debris.