Space Debris Attitude Control During Contactless Transportation in Planar Case

What is it about?

In Earth orbit there is a large number of spent rocket stages, which are space debris. For cleaning such space debris a spacecraft equipped with ion engines can be used. The spacecraft directs the jet of the engine to the space debris and the flow of ions gradually inhibits it. Calculations show that the most effective is braking in the case when the rocket stage is oriented perpendicular to the ion flux. In our work, we propose two control laws for ion engine thrust and its jet direction, which ensure the stabilization of the stage in the desired orientation. The results of numerical simulation prove that controlling the ion flow direction is a more efficient way of the space debris stabilizing in terms of minimizing the time spent.

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