The ground segment is the fundamental backbone of every satellite project, yet it is usually not visible to the public or the end user of a satellite service. Also the bulk of existing published space literature tends to focus on the satellite or its subsystems. This book tries to fill this gap and addresses systems engineering concepts applied to the design, development, qualification, and deployment of the ground control segment required to operate a single satellite, a constellation, or even a manned space vehicle.The domain of ground segment engineering has significantly evolved in recent...

This textbook provides details of the derivation of Lagrange's planetary equations and of the closely related Gauss's variational equations, thereby covering a sorely needed topic in existing literature.Analytical solutions can help verify the results of numerical work, giving one confidence that his or her analysis is correct. The authors—all experienced experts in astrodynamics and space missions—take on the massive derivation problem step by step in order to help readers identify and understand possible analytical solutions in their own endeavors. The stages are elementary yet...