A study of orbit determination for the low-thrust spacecraft

There are interplanetary mission by using continuously Low-thrust system instead of impulse thrust system. This paper is described Earth-based orbit determination capability for the low-thrust spacecraft in the light of recent developments both in a few station tracking concepts and in the thrust subsystem error modeling. Both suboptimal and optimal orbit determination performance are determined for a wide range of process noise parameter values. The tracking techniques are found to be extremely effective, reducing orbit determination errors by orders of magnitude over that obtained with conventional single-station tracking.