Low-thrust geo orbit transfer guidance using semi-analytic method

A low thrust GEO orbit transfer guidance is proposed based on the concept of semi-analytic satellite theory. Three weights every segment of the orbital elements of a continuous low thrust transfer are introduced, by changing which, shorter orbit transfer time and corresponding attitude angles of the spacecraft can be obtained. These parameters are computed from the minimum-time transfer employing unscented Kalman filter parameter estimation. This algorithm is simple and effective, to significantly reduce the computation load for the long-duration, many revolution trajectories. A numerical simulation of a GTO-GEO transfer is presented to demonstrate the proposed guidance scheme.