METHOD OF VIEWING SURFACE OF PLANET FROM SPACE AND SPACE SATELLITE SYSTEM FOR IMPLEMENTING SAID METHOD Russian patent published in 2014 - IPC B64G1/10 G05D1/00 G01C11/00 

FIELD: radio engineering, communication.

SUBSTANCE: group of inventions relates to information satellite systems (ISS) for various purposes, the tasks of which generally come down to scanning (continuously or periodically) a planet, particularly the Earth. In the disclosed ISS, satellites for scanning a region of a given latitude band with lower latitudes are taken to orbits with an inclination which is less than the inclination of the orbit to which satellites for scanning a region with higher latitudes are taken. High-latitude satellites also scan regions with said lower latitudes. Such an ISS design is preferable because scanning bands along adjacent satellite paths approach and overlap as the latitude rises. Satellite orbits can be selected close to circular with an average altitude which is different for high-latitude and low-latitude satellites. The essential condition of the ISS design is the equality between the regression velocities of the orbital nodal line for all satellites. This condition enables to maintain the structure of the ISS (given diversity of orbital planes on the longitude of the ascending node). Thus, the required number of satellites in the ISS and/or width of the scanning band is reduced. For a given number of satellites in the ISS and a fixed width of the scanning band, observation characteristics are improved (reduced scanning frequency, high accuracy of the navigation field etc.).

EFFECT: high efficiency of the ISS due to reduced non-uniformity on the width of conditions for scanning the surface of a planet with satellites.

10 cl, 4 dwg