org.jscience.astronomy.solarsystem.artificialsatellites
Interface Propagator

All Known Implementing Classes:

AbstractPropagator, SDP4, SDP8, SGP, SGP4, SGP8

public interface Propagator

Instances of classes which implement this interface propagate orbital state from an epoch at which the orbital state is known to a desired delta since the epoch.

Method Summary

java.util.SortedSet	generateEphemeris(double TS, double TF, double DELT) Generates an ephemeris of OrbitalState instances between the given start and end times.
java.lang.String	getName()
boolean	isDeep()
OrbitalState	propagate(double tsince) Propagates orbital state from the epoch at which the orbital state is known to the given desired delta since the epoch.

Method Detail

propagate

OrbitalState propagate(double tsince)

Propagates orbital state from the epoch at which the orbital state is known to the given desired delta since the epoch.

Implementations must set the time on the generated OrbitalState.

Parameters:

tsince - Time at which the orbital states is desired, in seconds since the epoch at which the orbital state is known.

Returns:

A non-null instance of OrbitalState representing the position and velocity at timestamp=epoch+tsince.

generateEphemeris

java.util.SortedSet generateEphemeris(double TS,
                                      double TF,
                                      double DELT)

Generates an ephemeris of OrbitalState instances between the given start and end times. The first (in terms of its timestamp) generated instance of OrbitalState always starts at the given start time, while the last will always be at or before the given end time.

Parameters:

TS - Desired start of the ephemeris, in seconds since the epoch of the known orbital state.

TF - Desired end of the ephemeris, in seconds since the epoch of the known orbital state.

DELT - Desired time between the timestamps of the generated orbital states.

Returns:

A collection of zero or more instances of OrbitalState, sorted with respect to their timestamps.

getName

java.lang.String getName()

Returns:

Name of the propagator.

isDeep

boolean isDeep()

Returns:

True if the propagator is a deep-space propagator, false if it isn't (i.e., if it is a near-Earth propagator).