How to build a function to make a working code more flexible?

Hi everyone! I have this main script which works and that finds me the passages of a satellite at a certain longitude. In this code, I have 4 satellites. These satellites are found separated from each other by a quarter of longitude (it means that if the first satellite passes at longitude 0 and again at longitude -24°, I will have the passage of satellite 2 at -6°, the passage of satellite 3 at -12° and the passage of satellite 4 at -18°). Now I would like to make the code more flexible (maybe building a function), because in this case I have 4 satellites, but I could have only 2 satellites separated by half longitude (it means that if the first satellite passes at longitude 0 and again at longitude -24°, I will have the passage of satellite 2 at -12°) or I could have 5 satellites separated by longitude/5 (with the same logic). How can I do that? Here the code

clc
clear all
close all

R=245;
N=16;
Q=R/N;

PassNo_sat1=1:1:R;
PassNo_sat2=1:1:R;
PassNo_sat3=1:1:R;
PassNo_sat4=1:1:R;


deltaLam_sat1=-2*pi/Q;
deltaLam_sat2=deltaLam_sat1/4;
deltaLam_sat3=deltaLam_sat1/2;
deltaLam_sat4=3*deltaLam_sat1/4;


lam_sat1(1)=0; %0 deg
lam_sat2(1)=deltaLam_sat2; %-6 deg
lam_sat3(1)=deltaLam_sat3; %-12 deg
lam_sat4(1)=deltaLam_sat4; %-18 deg

lam_sat2(1)=deltaLam_sat2;
dummy_sat2(1)=exp(1i*lam_sat2(1));
lamMpi2pi_sat2(1)=angle(dummy_sat2(1));
new_lampi2pi_in_deg_sat2(1) = rad2deg(lamMpi2pi_sat2(1));

lam_sat3(1)=deltaLam_sat3;
dummy_sat3(1)=exp(1i*lam_sat3(1));
lamMpi2pi_sat3(1)=angle(dummy_sat3(1));
new_lampi2pi_in_deg_sat3(1) = rad2deg(lamMpi2pi_sat3(1));

lam_sat4(1)=deltaLam_sat4;
dummy_sat4(1)=exp(1i*lam_sat4(1));
lamMpi2pi_sat4(1)=angle(dummy_sat4(1));
new_lampi2pi_in_deg_sat4(1) = rad2deg(lamMpi2pi_sat4(1));

...and so on

Answer 1

[Jon]

The first thing you should do to greatly simplify your code and make it more flexible is to avoid using variable names with numerical values and instead use arrays. So for example instead of your

lam_sat1(k),lam_sat2(k),lam_sat3(k), lam_sat4(k)

Use a two dimensional array and just define

lam_sat(j,k)

where j = 1,2,3,4

[Stephen23]

In addition to Jon's excellent advice, you should read this:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_prog/preallocating-arrays.html