Precise ground-in-the-loop orbit control for low earth observation satellites

The growing interest in earth observation missions equipped with space-borne optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors drives the accuracy requirements with respect to orbit determination and control. Especially SAR interferometry with its capability to resolve the velocity of on-ground objects (e.g. for traffic monitoring, ocean currents and glacier monitoring) and to determine highly precise digital elevation models is of significant interest for scientific applications. These goals may be achieved using along-track and repeat-pass interferometry with a satellite formation, based on the precise orbit control of one satellite with respect to the osculating trajectory of the second satellite. Such a control concept will be realized by the German TerraSAR-X mission, with an expected launch in 2006, using a virtual formation, where a single satellite will be controlled in a tight manner with respect to a predefined osculating reference trajectory. This is very challenging, since common orbit disturbances, like for close twin formations, do not cancel out in this scenario. The predefined trajectory in the TerraSAR-X case could also be the orbit of a second satellite. The paper describes the generation of such a virtual reference orbit, discusses the ground-in-the-loop control concept and presents results from a long-term simulation.