PhD Thesis: High-Fidelity Radiation Force Models for Mega-Constellations: Enhancing Orbit Solutions for Space Traffic Management
Over the course of my PhD thesis I have been developping radiation force models for spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit.
The improvements in radiation force models that I have been pursuing are two-fold:
Increasing the use and uptake of radiation pressure models by improving the methods with which they are made.
Increasing the physical fidelity of radiation pressure models and studying the operational impact this has on reducing aliasing of force model errors into downstream orbital products such as atmospheric density estimates and probability of collision calculations.
My research focuses on quantifying the impact of using different force modelling approaches in different contexts. To do so, I have been working on developping a radiation force model for a large mega-constellation operator. I then use the operator data, along with my force models to perform orbit determination (OD) and subsequently propagation. I analyse the orbit solutions and any derivative products: atmospheric density inversion estimates, probability of collision. I then focus on characterizing the quality of these products and how they are impacted by the force model used.