Optimal Guidance Trajectories for a Nanosat Docking with a Non Cooperative Resident Space Object
Abstract
There has been an increasing interest in on-orbit autonomous servicing and repair of satellites as well as controlled active debris removal (ADR) in the space industry recently. One of the most challenging tasks for servicing/repair as well as forADR is the rendezvous and docking with a non-cooperative tumbling resident space object (RSO). This paper presents apropellant optimal maneuver profile for a servicing spacecraft to perform proximity operations and eventually dock with a non-cooperative target. The strategy is to find an optimal trajectory which will guide the servicing spacecraft to approach the tumbling satellite such that the two vehicles will eventually have no relative motion. Therefore, a subsequent docking or capture operation can be safely performed. The research described here elaborates on the previous work that studied the minimum-control-effort for a 3-D docking to a tumbling object considering a full six-degree-of-freedom model of both chaser and target. The current work expands the scope by adding newset of linearized equations of motion that capture the effect of the J2 geopotential disturbance force.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 07, 2014
- Accession Number
- AD1034468
Entities
People
- Bogdan Udrea
- Michael Nayak
- Parv Patel
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology