Related papers: Systematic Design of Optimal Low-Thrust Transfers …
Gateway will represent a primary logistic infrastructure in cislunar space. The identification of efficient orbit transfers capable of connecting Earth, Moon, and Gateway paves the way for enabling refurbishment, servicing, and utilization…
Spacecraft operations are influenced by uncertainties such as dynamics modeling, navigation, and maneuver execution errors. Although mission design has traditionally incorporated heuristic safety margins to mitigate the effect of…
The reachable set of controlled dynamical systems consist of the set of all possible reachable states from an initial condition, over a certain period of time under various control and operation constraints and exogenous disturbances. For…
Trajectory optimization of low-thrust perturbed orbit rendezvous is a crucial technology for space missions in low Earth orbits, which is difficult to solve due to its initial value sensitivity, especially when the transfer trajectory has…
The minimum-fuel low-thrust transfer between circular orbits is formulated using the Edelbaum's averaged dynamics with the addition of the nodal precession due to the first zonal term. The extremal analysis shows that an optimal transfer is…
This work presents the first application of the state-of-the-art Koenig-D'Amico reachable set theory solver to cislunar, chaotic relative motion in the Circular-Restricted Three-Body Problem (CR3BP). The relative motion dynamics of two…
This contribution focuses on the design of low-energy transfers between planetary moons and presents an efficient technique to compute trajectories characterized by desirable behaviors in the vicinities of the departure and destination…
This paper investigates the application of zonotope-based reachability analysis to low-thrust spacecraft in both two-body and cislunar environments. Reachable sets are generated under two-body and circular restricted three-body (CR3BP)…
We demonstrate the remarkable effectiveness of boundary value formulations coupled to numerical continuation for the computation of stable and unstable manifolds in systems of ordinary differential equations. Specifically, we consider the…
Spacecraft trajectory design is a global search problem, where previous work has revealed specific solution structures that can be captured with data-driven methods. This paper explores two global search problems in the circular restricted…
In this paper a direct method based on a transcription by finite elements in time has been used to design optimal interplanetary trajectories, exploiting a combination of gravity assist maneuvers and low-thrust propulsion. A multiphase…
In inertial motion capture, a multitude of body segments are equipped with inertial sensors, consisting of 3D accelerometers and 3D gyroscopes. Using an optimization-based approach to solve the motion capture problem allows for natural…
This work aims to automate the design of Multiple Gravity-Assist (MGA) transfers between planets using low-thrust propulsion. In particular, during the preliminary design phase of space missions, the combinatorial complexity of MGA…
This paper presents a novel approach for the preliminary design of Low-Thrust, many-revolution transfers. The main feature of the novel approach is a considerable reduction in the control parameters and a consequent gain in computational…
Recent results in control systems and numerical integration literature utilize invariant set theory to lift dynamical systems evolving on nonlinear manifolds to those evolving on vector spaces. We leverage this technique to propose an…
In this paper, we present an application of the optimal control theory to orbital transfer of Low Earth Orbit satellites. The optimal control problem is treated with Dynamic Programming techniques which require solving the…
Consider the spatial restricted three-body problem, as a model for the motion of a spacecraft relative to the Sun-Earth system. We focus on the dynamics near the equilibrium point $L_1$, located between the Sun and the Earth. We show that…
In this work, we investigate trajectories that require thrust to maintain periodic structure in the circular restricted three-body problem (CR3BP). We produce bounds in position and velocity space for the energy-constrained reachable set of…
The minimum-fuel orbital transfer is analyzed in the case of a launcher upper stage using a constantly thrusting engine. The thrust level is assumed to be constant and its value is optimized together with the thrust direction. A closed-loop…
The proposal of increasingly complex and innovative space endeavours poses growing demands for mission designers. In order to meet the established requirements and constraints while maintaining a low fuel cost, the use of low-energy…