Related papers: Low Thrust Trajectory Design Using A Semi-Analytic…
The commercial interest in producing low-cost space missions by exploiting the superior propellant management of low-thrust propulsion technology has become increasingly popular. Typical to such missions is the design of transfer…
The growing interest in cislunar space exploration in recent years has driven an increasing demand for efficient low-thrust missions to key cislunar orbits. These missions, typically possessing long thrust arcs, are particularly susceptible…
This study proposes a new automated strategy for designing and optimizing three-dimensional interplanetary low-thrust (LT) trajectories. The method formulates the design as a hybrid optimal control problem and solves it using a two-step…
Low-thrust trajectory design relies heavily on repeated evaluations of fuel consumption and transfer feasibility, which require expensive optimal control solutions. In this work, we show these quantities can be accurately approximated by…
This paper proposes a systematic method for generating practical and robust low-thrust spacecraft trajectories. One contribution is to consider the change in mass of the spacecraft at two levels: a) the propulsive acceleration and b) the…
A deep-space exploration mission with low-thrust propulsion to rendezvous with multiple asteroids is investigated. Indirect methods, based on the optimal control theory, are implemented to optimize the fuel consumption. The application of…
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…
This study presents a fast nonlinear programming algorithm for low-thrust multi-asteroid rendezvous missions. The core contribution is the derivation of analytical formulations for both first- and second-order gradients of low-thrust…
Long time-duration low-thrust nonlinear optimal spacecraft trajectory global search is a computationally and time expensive problem characterized by clustering patterns in locally optimal solutions. During preliminary mission design,…
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…
This paper investigates the use of Reinforcement Learning for the robust design of low-thrust interplanetary trajectories in presence of severe disturbances, modeled alternatively as Gaussian additive process noise, observation noise,…
Low-thrust trajectories play a crucial role in optimizing scientific output and cost efficiency in asteroid belt missions. Unlike high-thrust transfers, low-thrust trajectories require solving complex optimal control problems. This…
In trajectory design, fuel consumption and trajectory reachability are two key performance indicators for low-thrust missions. This paper proposes general-purpose pretrained neural networks to predict these metrics. The contributions of…
The growing interest in the cislunar domain over the past decade has led to an increasing demand for low-thrust missions to key orbits within this region. These low-thrust missions, typically characterized by long thrust arcs, are highly…
Low-thrust orbital transfers are difficult to optimize by indirect methods. The main issues come from the costate guess and from the numerical propagation accuracy required by the shooting method. In the case of a coplanar minimum-time…
The optimization of low-thrust, multi-revolution orbit transfer trajectories is often regarded as a difficult problem in modern astrodynamics. In this paper, a flexible and computationally efficient approach is presented for the…
The Finite Fourier Series (FFS) Shape-Based (SB) trajectory approximation method has been used to rapidly generate initial trajectories that satisfy the dynamics, trajectory boundary conditions, and limitation on maximum thrust…
Optimization of low-thrust trajectories that involve a larger number of orbit revolutions is considered a challenging problem. This paper describes a high-precision symplectic method and optimization techniques to solve the minimum-energy…
Numerous high-thrust and low-thrust space propulsion technologies have been developed in the recent years with the goal of expanding space exploration capabilities; however, designing and optimizing a multi-mission campaign with both…
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…