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Document that ‘SGP4’ uses SDP4 for deep space sats
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brandon-rhodes committed Aug 31, 2024
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.. _Fundamentals of Astrodynamics and Applications: https://celestrak.org/software/vallado-sw.php
What we today call ‘SGP4’ in fact merges together what in the 1970s were
originally two separate satellite propagation routines, but which are
now selected automatically:
* SGP4 — the ‘Simplified General Perturbations' model is used for
satellites close enough to Earth that their orbit takes less than
225 minutes (3 hours 45 minutes) to complete.
* SDP4 — the ‘Simplified Deep Space Perturbations' model is used for
satellites farther from Earth, which take 225 minutes or longer to
compete an orbit.
If your machine can’t install or compile the C++ code, then this package
falls back to using a slower pure-Python implementation of SGP4. Tests
make sure that its positions **agree to within 0.1 mm** with the
falls back to using a slower pure-Python implementation of the library.
Tests make sure that its positions **agree to within 0.1 mm** with the
standard version of the algorithm — an error far less than the
1–3 km/day by which satellites themselves deviate from the ideal orbits
described in TLE files.
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