Abstract: Ground coverage stitching is the base of remote sensing satellite mission simulation. A coverage stitching simulation algorithm is proposed, considering big time step and attitude maneuver simulation. Transient coverage region is computed by light of view intersection and tangent searching methods. Transient coverage boundaries of different simulation times are stitched by two-dimension convex hull algorithm. Between points of the stitched region polygon edges, new vertexes are interpolated. With the method proposed, limb coverage problem and coverage fusion when time step is large can be solved. Computer simulation results show that the algorithm achieves a fine accuracy and has the ability of supporting remote sensing satellite simulation with long time and large time step.

Key words: remote sensing satellite, ground coverage, region stitching, payload, mission simulation, convex hull