• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.527-536
• /
• 2005

The perturbations caused by the Sun and the Moon are predominantly out-of-plane effects causing a change in the inclination and in the right ascension of ascending node of a geostationary satellite. Due to the change of the inclination, subsatellite latitude of the geostationary satellite has a daily variations of the same magnitude of the inclination. Therefore we need a facility to control the orbital inclination and right ascension of ascending node for maintaining the satellite position in specified subsatellite latitude boundary using thrusters. In this paper we studied North-South station keeping strategies of the COMS-1 such as Track-Back Chord Target (TBCT) method, Maximum Compensation Target (MCT) method and Minimum Fuel Target (MFT) method. We accomplished those North-South station keeping maneuvers for one year starting from December 2008. The required velocity increments to maintain the satellite are estimated as MCT 52.6065m/s, TBCT 52.2383m/s, MFT 51.5428m/s, respectively. We demonstrated that TBCT and MFT methods are proper to North-South station keeping for COMS-1. MFT method showed the minimum required velocity increments whereas TBCT traced narrow inclination boundary area for North-South station keeping.