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Abstract This paper presents the methods used and results found by the NUAA team in the Problem B of 9th China Trajectory Optimization Competition. The major challenges of this problem lie in three aspects: the constant coverage over a large-area target, the constant Geometric Dilution Precision (GDOP) requirements and the limited fuel constraint for orbit maneuver. To circumvent these challenges, several methods have been developed. Firstly, the regional visibility concept is adopted to efficiently calculate the area target coverage. Then, an elementary configuration is designed to optimize the GDOP value in a geometrical approach. Finally, the parameters are divided into two groups and handled separately in two optimization levels, which correspond to the orbit design and GDOP optimization, respectively. Simulation results show that the proposed approach can properly solve the competition problem, and the final design is able to cover 95% of the target cities. An improved result with 100% coverage is also presented by minor modification of the parameters, which proves the efficiency of the algorithm developed in this paper. Highlights • The regional visibility concept is developed to reduce the calculation cost of optimization. • An elementary formation approach is adopted to optimize the GDOP value. • The parameters are optimized separately in two decoupling phases to increase the efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]