Method for Calculating the Force and Moment of Aerodynamic Drag of a Satellite with a Complex Shape

This paper proposes and implements a method for calculating the main forces and moments caused by the interaction of the atmosphere and the surface of a low Earth orbit satellite. Both values depend significantly on the orientation of the spacecraft (SC) relative to the incoming flow. In this paper, the entire calculation process is divided into a preliminary computationally expensive first stage and a second stage, which is used to calculate the right-hand sides of the equations of motion. The interaction is assumed to be diffuse-specular, and the incoming flow is considered to be free-molecular.