Orbit determination of CE-4′s relay satellite in Earth-Moon L2 libration point orbit

Abstract

The Magpie Bridge mission is a part of the Chang’E-4 mission, it is the first Chinese spacecraft carries out Earth-Moon communication mission at Earth-Moon libration points. The Magpie Bridge operations team utilizes the Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC) Orbit Determination and Analysis Software (BODAS) to obtain the orbit, the measurements include range, Doppler and relay, relay-rate from China Deep Space Network (CDSN) and Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) system respectively. In order to effectively improve the accuracy of the orbit, we provided the solar radiation model with multiple characteristic surfaces. The new model is based on the structure and the real-time attitude of the satellite to solve the real-time solar pressure equivalent area. Compared with the cannon-ball model, it can calculate the solar pressure equivalent area of the satellite more accurately in orbit determination. By the analysis of the tracking measurement data, we found that the new solar radiation pressure model reduces the error of position and velocity compared to the cannon-ball model.