Adaptive scheme for accurate orbit propagation

Two extensions of the fast and accurate special perturbation method recently developed by Peláez et al. are presented for elliptic motion. A comparison with Peláez’s method and with the very efficient Stiefel-Scheifele’s method, for the problems of oblate Earth plus Moon and continuous radial thrust, shows that the new formulations can appreciably improve the accuracy of Peláez’s method and have a better performance of Stiefel-Scheifele’s method. Future work will be to include the two new formulations and the original one due to Peláez into an adaptive scheme for highly accurate orbit propagation.