Orbital lifetime design and optimization of CORBES based on lunisolar perturbation

In order to design the orbit for the COntellation of Radiation BElt Survey(CORBES) mission orbit that meets the mission requirements and deorbit constraints, this paper proposed a universal method to design optimal orbital parameters for Highly Elliptic Orbit(HEO). The impact of lunisolar perturbation on perigee altitude is evident, and once a portion of the orbital parameters is determined, the mathematical relationship between the amplitude of the long-period variation in perigee (referred to as “perigee variation”) and the orbital parameters to be designed can be described. The perigee variation exhibits a significant correlation with the orbital lifetime. The initial optimization of orbit parameters is conducted by considering the correlation between lunisolar perturbations and orbital lifetime. Based on this, the orbital parameter RAAN is designed using an improved Decimal Ant Colony Optimization(DACO), and the corresponding launch window is given. The simulation results and comparisons with previous methods validate the effectiveness and efficiency of the initial optimization and the improved DACO in providing optimal feasible solutions, taking into account the law of lunisolar perturbation on orbital lifetime. This method can be well applied to design and estimate the lifetime of orbits dominated by lunisolar perturbation, such as HEO and Geostationary Transfer Orbit(GTO).