Iterative explicit guidance for low thrust spacecraft.A retargeting procedure is developed for use as a nonlinear low thrust guidance scheme. The selection of a control program composed of a sequence of inertially fixed thrust-acceleration vectors permits all trajectory computations to be made with closed form expressions, and allows the controls to be represented by constant parameters, thrust-acceleration vectors and thrusting times. By requiring each trajectory to be time optimal, the guidance problem is transformed into a parameter optimization problem which is solved by the conjugate gradient method. The scheme is applied to a low thrust capture mission, and the results of computer simulations are presented.
Document ID
19720057895
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Jacobson, R. A. (California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena Calif., United States)
Powers, W. F. (Michigan, University Ann Arbor, Mich., United States)