Abstract
Chandrayaan-2, India’s second Moon mission, comprised of Orbiter, Lander and Rover modules was launched on July 22, 2019. The Chandrayaan-2 (CH2) Orbiter, which carries eight scientific payloads, is placed into a circular lunar orbit of 100 km altitude with an orbital period of around 120 minutes. After the successful injection of the spacecraft in the intended Earth parking orbit, it started facing eclipses during the Earth bound, Trans lunar, and lunar phases. This paper describes a high-fidelity orbit prediction propagator known as the Satellite Precise Orbit Propagator (SPOP), and an Earth shadow eclipse prediction model: the projection map method for the lunar orbiting spacecraft. The orbit and eclipse prediction models are simulated for the CH2 Orbiter. Results obtained by the models compare well with globally popular commercial package, Systems Tool Kit (STK) of Analytic Graphic Inc.
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Acknowledgements
We are thankful to anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and helpful suggestions which enhanced the quality of the work. Also, we thank the CH2 Orbiter Operation Team members of ISTRAC/ISRO, Bangalore, India, for providing the mission stage information.
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Srivastava, V.K., Mishra, P., Ramakrishna, B.N. et al. Orbit prediction and Earth shadow modeling for Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter. Astrophys Space Sci 366, 85 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-021-03991-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-021-03991-x