Abstract Low-thrust trajectories about planetary bodies characteristically span a high count of orbital revolutions. Directing the thrust vector over many revolutions presents a challenging optimization problem for any conventional strategy. This paper demonstrates the tractability of low-thrust trajectory optimization about planetary bodies by applying a Sundman transformation to change the independent variable of the spacecraft equations of motion to an orbit angle and performing the optimization with differential dynamic programming. Fuel-optimal geocentric transfers are computed with the transfer duration extended up to 2000 revolutions. The flexibility of the approach to higher fidelity dynamics is shown with Earth’s J 2 perturbation and lunar gravity included for a 500 revolution transfer.
Low-Thrust Many-Revolution Trajectory Optimization via Differential Dynamic Programming and a Sundman Transformation
The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences ; 65 , 2 ; 205-228
2018-01-04
24 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English