The Effects of Observations and Maneuvers on Orbit Solutions

The purpose of this research is to characterize the performance of the optimal sequential filter used in ODTK with a maneuvering satellite. Specifically, this thesis sought to characterize the performance using two scenarios: performance with a maneuver in between passes and performance with a limited number of measurements. The performance of the filter is evaluated by analyzing the covariance values generated during the orbit estimation process. Larger covariance values signify reduced performance of the filter. Several variables for the maneuvering satellite are used, including the maneuver direction and the maneuver magnitude. The time of the maneuver is also varied, which creates a short or long drift time in between passes. With sufficient data after a maneuver (about three passes) the ODTK filter is able to provide a good orbit estimate for the satellite. However, without at least three passes to gather new observations, the filter does not perform well