Enhancement of on-board forecasting accuracy of GEO SC COG motion using the compensative transversal acceleration

A method is suggested for enhancing the on-board forecasting accuracy of the COG motion of a GEO SC with a long time of independent operation. The suggested method consists of introducing so-called compensative transversal acceleration (CTA), along with zonal harmonics into the right sides of the differential equations of SC motion among other disturbances due to the Earth’s gravitational field eccentricity. The CTA compensates the integral effect of the sectoral and tesseral harmonics; its value is constant for a specified point of GEO SC location (standing point) and is calculated on the Earth from numerical integration of differential equations of motion taking into account the complete set of gravitational field harmonics. The CTA value is transmitted on-board of an SC as program command data. The method is implemented in algorithms of on-board forecasting of Electro-L SC motion and can be used to enhance the on-board forecasting accuracy of the COG motion of GEO SCs with a long time of independent operation.