Optimal Planar Powered Descent with Independent Thrust and Torque

What is it about?

This work studies a powered descent problem for a vehicle with a single main engine that is rigidly attached to the vehicle and an independent actuator capable of generating torque. For motion that is restricted to a plane, we derive several characteristics of the optimal solutions and provide theoretically-backed intuitive results. These results extend the known theoretical properties of rocket-powered landings beyond the translation-only case that has been previously addressed.

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