Abstract:

A method for calculation of the sun’s location in the satellite’s body coordinate system is proposed in order to measure the solar irradiance using solar irradiance absolute radiometer on the sun synchronous orbit satellite. First, the sun’s location in the inertial coordinate system is calculated using the VSOP87 theory. Then, the sun’s location in the satellite’s body coordinate system is obtained by coordinate transformation. Finally, the satellite’s instantaneous orbital elements of high accuracy are generated based on the mean orbital elements to simulate the precision for calculation of the sun’s location. The simulation shows that the accuracy for the calculation of the sun’s location is within 0.19°.

Key words: sun synchronous orbit satellite, sun tracking, coordinate transformation, VSOP87