UNIFORM AND WEIGHTED COVERAGE FOR LARGE LATTICE FLOWER CONSTELLATIONS

This paper addresses the problem of designing satellite constellations with a large number of satellites on circular orbits. As the number of satellite increases the minimum distance constraint slows down the optimization process. Using the 2-D Lattice Flower Constellations theory with the constraint of having all satellites in the same relative trajectory in any rotating frame (e.g., the Earth) the minimum distance constraint is obtained a priori if the relative trajectory has no self intersections. The algorithms to obtain this condition (no self-intersections) is presented. The design parameters of three different configurations made with 200, 289, and 391 satellites Flower Constellations are presented. The coverage of these configurations are shown for specific altitude. These large Lattice Flower Constellations are invariant with respect to the orbital altitude (orbital period). The constellation coverage performance have been optimized using Genetic Algorithms and uniform distribution of points on a sphere.