AAS 97-648
OPTIMAL BOUNDED LOW THRUST RENDEZVOUS WITH FIXED TERMINAL APPROACH DIRECTION
M. Guelman, M. Aleshin - Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
Abstract
The bounded, low-thrust, fixed time, fuel-optimal constrained terminal approach direction rendezvous using the relative linearized equations of motion is investigated. A minimum fuel two-stage solution is developed. In the first stage, optimal transfer from initial conditions to an intermediate point in the final line approach is implemented. In the second stage, an optimal thrust program guaranteeing directional approach is applied. Optimal rendezvous with fixed terminal approach is achieved by minimizing overall fuel consumption as function of a single parameter, namely, the time the intermediate point in the final line approach is reached. Both bounded and unbounded solutions are generated and analyzed with final time as a parameter. Numerical results for a representative case are presented.