A Preliminary Analysis of Small Spacecraft Finite-Thrust Aeroassisted Orbital Transfer

Abstract

The problem of finite-thrust small spacecraft minimum-fuel heat rateconstrained aeroassisted orbital transfer between two low-Earth orbits with inclination change is considered. The trajectory design for a vehicle of small mass and moderate thrust is described in detail and the aeroassisted orbital transfer is posed as a nonlinear optimal control problem. The optimal control problem is solved using a previously developed open-source pseudospectral optimal control software. It is found for heating rate-unconstrained cases that the fuel consumption is insensitive to the number of atmospheric passes, whereas for heating rate-constrained cases the fuel consumption decreases as a function of the number of atmospheric passes. The key features of the optimal trajectories are identified. The result of this research demonstrates the efficiency of an aeroassisted orbital transfer as compared with an all-propulsive transfer and show the more realistic results obtained when compared with an aeroassisted orbital transfer where it is assumed that the thrust is impulsive.