Tidal Effects and the Motion of a Satellite

Abstract

The effect of resonant planetary perturbations on the evolution of the orbit of a satellite driven by tidal forces is studied in this paper. The basic equations that govern it are similar to the equations found in orbit-orbit and in spin-orbit couplings. The gener­al form of these equations is:

$$ \begin{gathered} \frac{{dx}} {{dt}} = A - Bx + (Q + Q't)\sin \theta \hfill \\ \frac{{d\theta }} {{dt}} = 2G(t)x \hfill \\ \end{gathered} $$

((1))

\end{array}\] A general Treatment of such equations, proposed earlier (J. Kovalevsky, in Dynamical Trapping and Evolution of the Solar system, IAU colloquium n 74, V.V. Markellos and Y. Kozai, eds., 1983) is sketched.