Station keeping of geostationary satellites by electric propulsion
Abstract
As various types of perturbations tend to drive a geostationary satellite away from its prescribed position, occasional orbit corrections have to be carried out by means of a suitable propulsion system. In future geostationary missions, low thrust electric propulsion is likely to be applied for station keeping because of considerable mass savings. In this paper a station keeping strategy for electric propulsion systems is developed. Both the unconstrained case and the case where thrust operation constraints are present are considered and tested by computer simulation of a realistic example.
- Publication:
-
Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt and American Astronautical Society
- Pub Date:
- March 1980
- Bibcode:
- 1980dglr.meetR....E
- Keywords:
-
- Electric Propulsion;
- Low Thrust Propulsion;
- Spacecraft Control;
- Stationkeeping;
- Synchronous Satellites;
- Computerized Simulation;
- Earth Orbits;
- Geosynchronous Orbits;
- Orbital Mechanics;
- Trajectory Optimization;
- Astrodynamics