ADBSat: Verification and validation of a novel panel method for quick aerodynamic analysis of satellites

TL;DR

ADBSat is a fast, validated panel method tool for estimating satellite aerodynamic forces in free-molecular flow, offering quick results with acceptable accuracy for most geometries, especially useful in VLEO applications.

Contribution

The paper introduces ADBSat, a novel, efficient panel method implementation with a pseudo-shading algorithm, validated against DSMC and literature, suitable for rapid satellite aerodynamic analysis.

Findings

ADBSat runs significantly faster than DSMC.

ADBSat performs well except with deep concavities.

Error interval of up to 3% is acceptable for ADBSat outputs.

Abstract

We present the validation of ADBSat, a novel implementation of the panel method including a fast pseudo-shading algorithm, that can quickly and accurately determine the forces and torques on satellites in free-molecular flow. Our main method of validation is comparing test cases between ADBSat, the current de facto standard of direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC), and published literature. ADBSat exhibits a significantly shorter runtime than DSMC and performs well, except where deep concavities are present in the satellite models. The shading algorithm also experiences problems when a large proportion of the satellite surface area is oriented parallel to the flow, but this can be mitigated by examining the body at small angles to this configuration (${\pm}$ 0.1{\deg}). We recommend that an error interval on ADBSat outputs of up to 3\% is adopted. Therefore, ADBSat is a suitable tool for quickly determining the aerodynamic characteristics of a wide range of satellite geometries in different environmental conditions in VLEO. It can also be used in a complementary manner to identify cases that warrant further investigation using other numerical-based methods.