STUDY OF SUBCYCLES FOR REPEAT ORBITS AND APPLICATION TO THE ICESAT, ENVISAT AND CRYOSAT MISSIONS

摘要

The purpose of this paper is to provide some basic insights toward a better understanding of repeat orbit subcycles. The theoretical framework developed by Lim is applied to ICESat 91-day repeat orbit, ENVISAT 35-day repeat orbit and to CryoSat 369-day orbit to generate chart of subcycles for each orbit studied. These charts exhibit several geometrical properties that can be used to combine subcycles into sequences of subcycles. A discussion on the existence of particular subcycles using the Bezout theorem is conducted and illustrated through the CryoSat orbit.