Software for Station Keeping of Co-Located Geostationary Satellites

Abstract

A compact but powerful and accurate software system for station keeping of single and co-located satellites is presented, that is currently being integrated at the German Space Operations Center. Core modules are orbit determination, including maneuver estimation, maneuver planning, ephemeris, interference and event prediction, and relative motion for co-located satellites. A compact orbit and maneuver data base is maintained and accessed by the different modules. The user interface is realized as a menu-driven shell using alphanumeric screen masks. The software is written in ADA and Fortran and will be implemented under the Digital Equipment VMS. It may be run on a workstation or accessed through alpha terminals. External users are invited to license this software.