Satellite: Equinoctial Elements
The position and velocity of the object, expressed in equinoctial elements,
as a function of time in the requested coordinate system.
Equinoctial elements are a set of orbital elements that are not singular when the eccentricity
becomes zero or the orbit is equatorial.
Rates of the elements may also be reported. Rates are computed using variation of parameters
expressions with the perturbative acceleration which is computed as the total acceleration minus
the two body acceleration, expressed in the requested coordinate system. Due to the method of computation,
element rates will not be consistent with finite differencing of the element values for cases where
the velocity is not the true time derivitive of the acceleration; for this reason, these values will not be reported for the J2, J4 and SGP4 propagators.
The elements can be requested in a variety of coordinate systems.
The available coordinate systems depend on the object's central body.
Nominally, the systems Inertial, J2000, TrueOfDate, and MeanOfDate
are supported, although some central bodies (notably the Earth and Sun) have more.
The following lists the inertial systems available for Earth.
Type: Time-varying data
Availability: Reports | Graphs | Dynamic Displays | Strip Charts
Name | Description |
---|---|
ICRF | International Celestial Reference Frame. The ICRF axes are defined as the inertial (i.e., kinematically non-rotating) axes associated with a general relativity frame centered at the solar system barycenter (often called the BCRF). |
MeanOfDate | The mean equator mean equinox coordinate system evaluated at the requested time. |
MeanOfEpoch | The mean equator mean equinox coordinate system evaluated at the epoch of the object. |
TrueOfDate | The true equator true equinox coordinate system evaluated at the requested time. |
TrueOfEpoch | The true equator true equinox coordinate system evaluated at the epoch of the object. |
B1950 | The mean equator mean equinox coordinate system evaluated at the beginning of the Besselian year 1950 (31 December 1949 22:09:46.866 = JD 2433282.4234591). |
TEMEOfEpoch | The true equator mean equinox coordinate system evaluated at the epoch of the object. |
TEMEOfDate | The true equator mean equinox coordinate system evaluated at the requested time. |
AlignmentAtEpoch | The non-rotating coordinate system coincident with the Fixed system evaluated at the object's coordinate reference epoch. |
J2000 | The mean equator mean equinox coordinate system evaluated at the J2000.0 epoch (2000 January 1.5 = JD 2451545.0 TDB). |