A Comparative Study on Orbit Determination for Geostationary Satellites Based on High/Low Surveillance Platform

The state information of GEO satellite can not be easily accepted by the ground-based surveillance system owning to its geostationary observing model. To monitor and catalog all GEO satellites under surveillance, both the structure in observation geometry and constrained effects in dynamic models are strengthened via in-orbit tracking by space platform. High or low-orbit platform and their observation methods were analyzed. The effects of orbit determination caused by measuring errors were studied. Simulation shows that orbit determination precision for GEO satellites is in kilometer level on high or low-orbit platform, but the orbit determination accuracy with low-orbit platform is better than with high-orbit platform. System error is the main source of orbit determination errors.