Analysis of coupled attitude and orbit dynamics for uncontrolled re-entry satellite

The re-entry prediction of uncontrolled satellite in the atmosphere is extremely challenging. It is because the aerodynamics computation requires the knowledge of the object's geometry and attitude evolution during re-entry. In addition, the model to predict the atmosphere densities at altitude level is in term of solar flux and geomagnetic activity. All uncertainties are challenge to predict the high accuracy of re- entry times and drop zone. This paper aims to study attitude evolution during re-entry by coupling attitude and orbit dynamics (6DOF) and the results are compared with the results of orbit dynamics (3DOF). The investigation results of 6DOF provide a better understanding of attitude evolution and more accuracy prediction of re-entry but computation time is significantly higher than 3DOF. The simulated results of both are compared with the results of space-track publish to investigate the level of prediction accuracy.