THE EFFECT OF DYNAMICAL ACCURACY FOR UNCERTAINTY PROPAGATION

A major topic in the field of space situational awareness is to accurately map the uncertainty of an observed object, accounting for nonlinear relative dynamics using either analytic or numerical approaches. For analytic approaches, an open question exists regarding the importance of short-period terms in the analytic theory relative to the secular dynamics terms. This paper will explore this question using the classical Brouwer theory (CBT). Specifically, we discuss how well uncertainty propagation under the secular Brouwer theory (without short-period terms) compares to the CBT, and how the CBT compares to a fully numerical propagation.