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Low-thrust Interplanetary Trajectories with Missed Thrust Events: a Numerical Approach

Numerical Analysis 2025-11-19 v1 Numerical Analysis

Abstract

The problem under consideration is to drive a spatial vehicle to a target at a given final time while minimizing fuel consumption. This is a classical optimal control problem in a deterministic setting. However temporary stochastic failures of the engine may prevent reaching the target after the engine usage is recovered. Therefore, a stochastic optimal control problem is formulated under the constraint of ensuring a minimal probability of hitting the target. This problem is modeled, improved and finally solved by dualizing the probability constraint and using an Arrow-Hurwicz stochastic algorithm. Numerical results concerning an interplanetary mission are presented.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.14274,
  title  = {Low-thrust Interplanetary Trajectories with Missed Thrust Events: a Numerical Approach},
  author = {Jean-Philippe Chancelier and Pierre Carpentier and Guy Cohen and Thierry Dargent and Richard Epenoy},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.14274},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T07:42:51.410Z