Autonomous Low-Earth-Orbit Station-Keeping with Electric Propulsion

Abstract

This paper studies the application of an electric propulsion system for autonomous station-keeping of a remote sensing spacecraft flying at low altitude. The consid-ered propulsion system exploits a Xenon propellant bus, which operates both a low power Hall effect thruster and a resistojet. The former is used for continuous in-track control, while the latter provides the impulsive thrusts necessary for cross-track ma-neuvers. The adopted navigation solution is based on an extended Kalman filter, em-ploying gyro, star-tracker and GPS measurements. Lyapunov-based and proportional-derivative feedback laws are used for orbit and attitude control, respectively. The performance of the proposed electric propulsion system and guidance, navigation and control solution is evaluated on a low Earth orbit mission.