Analysis of coupled attitude and orbit dynamics for uncontrolled re-entry satellite

The re-entry prediction of uncontrolled satellite in the atmosphere is extremely challenging. It is because the aerodynamics computation requires the knowledge of the object's geometry and attitude evolution during re-entry. In addition, the model to predict the atmosphere densities at altitude level is in term of solar flux and geomagnetic activity. All uncertainties arc challenge to predict the high accuracy of reentry times and drop zone. This paper aims to study attitude evolution during re-entry by coupling attitude and orbit dynamics (6D0F) and the results are compared with the results of orbit dynamics (3DOF). The investigation results of 6DOF provide a better understanding of attitude evolution and more accuracy prediction of re-entry but computation time is significantly higher than 3D0F. The simulated results of both are compared with the results of space-track publish to investigate the level of prediction accuracy.