Pre-Flight Calculation of the Orbital Parameters of a Small Satellite

Abstract

The problem of pre-flight calculation of the orbital parameters of the first nanosatellite of the Belarusian State University CubeBel-1 before launching from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China has been solved. The first nanosatellite passes over the Belarusian State University ground station were predicted based on the perturbed circular motion model. The initial TLE file was generated and published on the Internet. This allowed dozens of radio amateurs from 5 continents successfully to receive the nanosatellite telemetry on the first day after the launch on October 29, 2018 at 00:43:13.576 UTC, and the Belarusian State University ground station was the first to decode the CubeBel-1 telemetry. The obtained initial parameters were compared with the calculations in the SGP 4 model. It is shown that the absolute errors in predicting the elevation and azimuth of nanosatellite CubeBel-1 did not exceed 2o and 3o, respectively, and the absolute error in predicting the Doppler frequency shift of telemetry signals did not exceed 350 Hz, which, with appropriate receiver settings, is sufficient for successful reception of telemetry signals of satellite and their decoding.