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Relative Equilibria Of A Rigid Satellite In A Central Gravitational Field, Jeffrey A. Beck

Theses and Dissertations

We apply noncanonical Hamiltonian methods to examine relative equilibria of a rigid body in a central gravitational field. These equilibria correspond to fixed points of a reduced set of equations expressed in a rotating frame and are representative of an orbiting satellite with fixed attitude relative to an observer rotating at the orbital rate. Our objective is to clarify the relationship between the classical approximation and a recent noncanonical Hamiltonian treatment. In contrast to the classical approximation, the orbital and attitude equations of motion for the noncanonical system remain coupled and the general solution is a circular orbit for which …