Closed-loop spacecraft orbit control

Abstract

A spacecraft orbit control system and method that provides orbit control of a spacecraft. The system comprises the spacecraft, one or more electric and/or chemical thrusters disposed on the spacecraft, and a control processor having control outputs coupled to the plurality of thrusters. An orbit control algorithm is implemented that determines the current orbit of the spacecraft, determines whether or not to perform stationkeeping, determines desired changes in certain orbit parameters if stationkeeping is to be performed, determines thruster firings that accomplish the desired orbit parameter changes, and fires the thrusters to perform spacecraft stationkeeping and provide spacecraft longitude control. The present invention may be used with any type of orbit determination procedure (such as GPS or ranging, with or without orbit propagation) and any type of stationkeeping algorithm that calculates thruster firings from desired orbit-parameter corrections.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.