Three-Apogee 16-h Highly Elliptical Orbit as Optimal Choice for Continuous Meteorological Imaging of Polar Regions
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract A highly elliptical orbit (HEO) with a 16-h period is proposed for continuous meteorological imaging of polar regions from a two-satellite constellation. This orbit is characterized by three apogees (TAP) separated by 120°. The two satellites are 8 h apart, with repeatable ground track in the course of 2 days. Advantages are highlighted in comparison to the Molniya 12-h orbit described in detail in a previous study (Trishchenko and Garand). Orbital parameters (period, eccentricity, and inclination) are obtained as a result of an optimization process. The principles of orbit optimization are based on the following four key requirements: spatial resolution (apogee height), the altitude of crossing the trapped proton region at the equator (minimization of radiation doze caused by trapped protons), imaging time over the polar regions, and the stability of the orbit, which is mostly defined by the rotation of perigee. The interplay between these requirements points to a 16-h period with an eccentricity of 0.55 as the optimum solution. The practical range of orbit inclinations that could be maintained during the spacecraft lifetime can vary from a critical value of 63.435° to 70° (subject to the amount of propellant available for orbital maneuvers). In comparison to Molniya, this type of orbit reduces the radiation exposure to high-energy protons by factor of 103–104. On the other hand, the main advantage of 16 h versus longer orbital periods up to 24 h is better spatial resolution as a result of a lower apogee height. A two-satellite TAP constellation with an orbital inclination of 66° provides 100% temporal coverage above 60°N, >95% above 55°N, >85% above 50°N, and >75% above 45°N.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".