Orbit Analysis Tools Software Version 1 for Windows User's Guide.

The Orbit Analysis Tools Software (OATS) is a mission planning and analysis tool for earth-orbiting satellites. OATS evolved from a collection of software tools developed by the Astrodynamics and Space Applications Office of the Naval Center for Space Technology (NCST), located at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, DC. There have been three previous versions of OATS that are available to the public for use on a Macintosh computer. This release of the OATS program is a revised and expanded version for use on the Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems. The program's function is to perform satellite mission and coverage analysis using numerical and graphical techniques to analyze and display earth coverage data and ground-to-satellite geometrical parameters. Satellite ephemerides can be computed by any of the four orbit propagators provided with the program, or they can be imported from an external source. Six commonly utilized map projections are available to plot computational results. Some of the program enhancements for Version 1 include the typical Windows point-and-click interface through the use of menu options and toolbar buttons. This latest release also provides a real time propagation option for generating the ephemeris data. This feature simultaneously generates the ephemeris and graphically displays the current satellite position and tracks on a map in real time. A series of validation tests of Version 1 OATS for Windows were conducted for functionality and accuracy. The verification method was accomplished by making comparisons between computations and displays of Version 1 OATS for Windows and the previously validated Version 5.0.4 OATS for the Macintosh. The new Windows interface was written using Visual C++, and the OATS program runs on Windows 95, 98, or Windows NT operating systems which requires 8 MB RAM, 5 MB hard disk space.