Orbit Determination and Data Fusion in GEO

This paper proposes a simple yet reliable method for performing orbit determination or track initiation in the geosynchronous (GEO) regime of space using angle-only sensor observations. The main discovery communicated in this paper is a new online metric which allows the operator to assess in realtime if there is adequate observational data to solve the orbit determination problem and hence initiate a robust track state estimate and consistent covariance.