Abstract: The lifetime of an artificial satellite moving in the circular orbit under the action of nonuniform rotating atmospheric drag is studied from an energy point of view in this paper. The angular velocity of atmospheric rotation decreases with height according to hydrodynamics. The atmospheric density decreases with height according to the exponential formula. The expression for the lifetime of a satellite in the instantaneous circular orbit in the above-mentioned rotating atmospheric model is derived, and the numerical estimation for the lifetime of a concrete satellite has been made. The result shows clearly that the satellite lifetime calculated by this paper is shorter than that calculated by the uniform rotating atmospheric model.

Key words: nonuniform rotating atmospheric drag, satellite lifetime, calculation