Constellation design theory has been studied extensively. However, analysis of longitude-dependent perturbation effects on inter-satellite distance drift has not received much attention. In addition to oblateness-related perturbations, sectoral and tesseral perturbations are non-negligible for low Earth orbits, due to their effect on inter-satellite distance evolution. This paper introduces the idea of reducing the tesseral/sectoral relative drift by including these perturbations in the short-periodic correction of the mean elements. An analytical expression of the correction is derived based on the Lie transform theory. Different from previous works, the ratio between the Earth rotation rate and the satellite’s mean motion is chosen as the small parameter in the Lie theory formulation. The independent variables of the generating-function-related partial differential equations can be reduced to a single variable when using this small parameter. Numerical simulations validate that the sectoral and tesseral effects on the inter-satellite distance drift in satellite constellations can be mitigated by using the proposed correction of the mean elements.

星座设计理论已被广泛研究。然而，经度相关摄动对卫星间距离漂移的影响的分析并未引起足够的重视。除了与扁率有关的扰动外，扇形和陆地扰动对于低地球轨道也是不可忽略的，因为它们对卫星间距离的演化有影响。本文介绍了通过将这些扰动包括在均值元素的短周期校正中来减少阶跃/部门相对漂移的想法。根据李变换理论得出校正的解析表达式。与以前的工作不同，在Lie理论公式中，将地球自转速度与卫星平均运动之比选作小参数。使用此小参数时，可以将与生成函数相关的偏微分方程的自变量简化为单个变量。数值模拟证实，通过使用所提出的均值校正，可以减轻对卫星星座中卫星间距离漂移的扇形和陆地影响。