Uncertainty quantification of the orbital lifetime of a LEO spacecraft

Orbital lifetime estimation is a problem of great timeliness and importance in astrodynamics. In view of the stochastic nature of the thermosphere and of the complexity of drag modeling, any deterministic assessment of orbital lifetime is likely to be bound to failure. This is why the present paper performs uncertainty quantification of satellite orbital lifetime estimation. Uncertainties in the initial state of the satellite and in the atmospheric drag force, as well as uncertainties introduced by modeling limitations associated with atmospheric density models, are considered. Mathematical statistics methods in conjunction with mechanical modeling considerations are used to infer the probabilistic characterization of these uncertainties from experimental data and atmospheric density models. Monte Carlo propagation is then exploited to achieve a probabilistic description of the orbital lifetime.