Optimal station keeping of geostationary satellites by electric propulsion

Considering the longer control arc of electric propulsion and the no longer applied assumption of impulse,a linear time-varying model for dynamics of geostationary satellite by perturbations and an optimization method for long-term control strategy were derived. A high-precision dynamical model of mean orbital elements was introduced based on equinox orbital parameters, which is highly consistent with STK-HPOP model. An optimization model considering overall orbit east-west and south-north control, and an optimization solving method based on sequential quadratic programming were proposed. In the simulation example,the problem of station keeping within 4 weeks for geostationary satellites configured with two thrusters was studied. The results show that the proposed method could be used to optimize the long-term station keeping control strategy.