Comparison of Theoretical Solar Radiation Effects and Observed Accellerations of a PAGEOS Satellite.

摘要

The effects of solar radiation pressure on a balloon spacecraft, PAGEOS, are examined under the dynamical conditions in which it was observed to undergo both a speed-up in rotation and a precession in its spin-axis. The analysis is an extension of mechanisms suggested by earlier workers who had no access to the details of the spacecraft shape and dynamical orientation data, now available from ground-based photometric studies. It is shown that both spin and precession torques can be explained through the radiation pressure mechanism using the optical and thermophysical properties of aluminized mylar, and by introducting an elliposidal model for the relaxed spacecraft shape, a model which has earlier been found to explain orbital perturbations as due to radiation pressure. (Author)