Normalized Force Coefficients for Satellites with Elongated Shapes

The coefficient of drag is one of the largest sources of error when retrieving neutral density and winds from satellite accelerometer measurements. As the use of highly accurate accelerometers increases, so does our need for the improved modeling of surface forces. This paper discusses two analytical methods for calculating the coefficients of drag and lift in the context of long satellites with substantial surface areas parallel to the flow. The density data from one such satellite, the challenging minisatellite payload, is compared to the high accuracy satellite drag model of thermospheric density using each of the two methods for calculating the coefficients of drag and lift. When the random thermal motions of the ambient atmosphere are taken into account, the increase in agreement is found to be over 35%. These results show that the coefficient of drag for the challenging minisatellite payload satellite cannot be adequately represented under hyperthermal assumptions.