English

Real-Time Retargeting Using Controllability Boundary for Chandrayaan-3 Lunar Landing

Systems and Control 2026-05-29 v1 Machine Learning Systems and Control

Abstract

This paper presents the real-time retargeting guidance policy developed for the Chandrayaan-3 lunar landing mission. The baseline guidance generates approximate fuel-optimal descent trajectories, while a high-level policy enables safe retargeting to alternate sites when the nominal site becomes infeasible. The retargeting strategy leverages a convex representation of the controllability boundary, allowing rapid feasibility checks and real-time target updates. To the best of the authors knowledge, this represents the first application of a data-driven retargeting framework in an operational lunar landing mission. Pre-flight simulations and Chandrayaan-3 flight results validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.29412,
  title  = {Real-Time Retargeting Using Controllability Boundary for Chandrayaan-3 Lunar Landing},
  author = {Suraj Kumar and Debjyoti Chakrabarti and Aditya Rallapalli and Bharat Kumar GVP and Ashok Kumar Kakula},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.29412},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

8 pages, 6 figures, Accepted for publication in American Control Conference 2026