Minimum-Fuel Earth-Based Orbit Transfers Using Multiple-Domain Adaptive Radau Collocation

What is it about?

A study is performed to improve the fuel consumption in transferring a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit (LEO) to either medium-Earth orbit (MEO), high-Earth orbit (HEO), or geostationary orbit (GEO. A key result of the study is the structure in the thrust that is obtained as a result of the numerical approach used. Key results obtained in this study include not only the number of switches in the optimized thrust, but also the total impulse. Furthermore, it is found that, as the maximum allowable thrust acceleration decreases, the total impulse is less than the total impulse obtained from a previous study where a burn-coast-burn thrusting structure was assumed a priori. For each type of transfer a particular value of maximum allowable thrust acceleration is chosen to highlight in more detail the key features of the optimal solutions. This study provides improved results over previous studies and provides improved insight into the optimal thrusting structure required in order to accomplish each type of orbital transfer using the least amount of fuel.

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