Package org.orekit.propagation.sampling

This package provides interfaces and classes dealing with step handling during propagation.

It is used when a Propagator is run. The propagator takes care of the time loop and application callback methods are called at each finalized step. The callback methods must implement the OrekitFixedStepHandler interface for fixed step sampling or the OrekitStepHandler interface for variable step sampling.

Both regular propagators using double numbers for state components and field based propagators using any kind of field are available. A typical example is to use derivative structure objects to propagate orbits using Taylor Algebra, for either high order uncertainties propagation or very fast Monte-Carlo simulations.

The PropagatorsParallelizer class can be used to propagate orbits for several spacecrafts simultaneously, which can be useful for formation flying or orbit determination for complete navigation constellations.

The low level interfaces and classes (OrekitXxx) are heavily based on classes with similar names in the ode package from the Hipparchus library. The changes are mainly adaptations of the signatures to space dynamics:

  • the type of dependent variable t has been changed from double to AbsoluteDate
  • the type of state vector y has been changed from double[] to SpacecraftState
Author:
Luc Maisonobe