Abstract
In this paper we consider the relative motion between satellites moving along near circular orbits in LEO. The difference of the approach we present here to other published work on this topic is that we start with analytic solutions of the equations of motion rather than attempt to develop linearised equations of relative motion which we then solve. This approach leads naturally to a decomposition of the orbital motion into three components: the motion of a guiding centre that incorporates the secular evolution of the formation; the periodic motion of the formation about this guiding centre - as an approximately solid body motion of the formation; and the periodic motion of individual satellites within the formation. By separating the motion into these three components we can develop a simple description of the motion that avoids a lot of the complexity in other formulations. We present propagations of satellite orbits to fully evaluate how accurate the analytic expressions we have developed are. Copyright © 2006 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.