A method of controlling an inclined, eccentric geosynchronous satellite orbit

A method of controlling an inclined, eccentric geosynchronous satellite orbit comprises; determining an estimate of the current orbit parameters 11; determining the desired changes to the orbit 12; locating N points on the orbit at which corrections to the orbit will be made 13; determine the velocity changes to be performed at each of the N points to achieve the correction 14; and if the velocity changes cause the longitude 'deadband' to be exceeded, increasing the number of points N and repeating the above process 15. In an embodiment of the invention points are located in pairs on the orbit, preferably spaced at points 180 degrees apart, in an attempt to reduce induced positional errors. A computer program for performing the steps of the method is also disclosed.