Abstract：The test particle Monte Carlo method for flow in the free-molecular flow regime was integrated with various state-of-the-art atmospheric models in a general, three-dimensional code to calculate the atmospheric drag for user-defined spacecraft geometries of arbitrary complexity. Then, the code was applied to the geodetic GOCE satellite to evaluate the effects of flight altitude, orbit latitude and orbit longitude on the atmospheric drag to assess the sensitivity of the satellite drag on the atmospheric model. The results show that increasing the satellite height significantly reduces the atmospheric drag while increasing the drag coefficient. The results also illustrate the sensitivity of the satellite drag prediction to the atmospheric model. The orbit latitude and longitude affect the drag coefficients and the satellite drag indirectly by changing the atmospheric temperature and the molecular mass since the satellite drag is determined by the drag coefficient and the atmospheric density. Both the satellite drag and the drag coefficients are nonlinear functions of the orbit latitude and longitude. For the conditions considered here, two newer atmospheric models, JB2008 and DTM-2013, predict similar satellite drag forces with three older models, USSA-1976, Jacchia-1977 and NRLMSISE-00, yielding comparable but somewhat larger drag predictions.
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2020, Vol. 60 
