A guidance methodology for the cislunar transfer of low-thrust spacecraft

Details A guidance methodology for the cislunar transfer of low-thrust spacecraft A guidance methodology for the cislunar transfer of low-thrust spacecraft

May 1991

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1991phdt........44k&link_type=abstract

Ph.D. Thesis Texas Univ., Austin.

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Methodology

Cislunar Space, Earth Orbits, Earth-Moon System, Lunar Orbits, Orbit Transfer Vehicles, Trajectories, Trajectory Control, Airborne/Spaceborne Computers, Algorithms, Computerized Simulation, Spacecraft Propulsion

Scientific paper

The research focuses on the development of a guidance methodology for cislunar low-thrust spacecraft and the resulting computer model to generate the trajectories between the Earth and Moon. Rather than developing an optimal trajectory and finding the guidance required to match it, the guidance scheme developed here for the cislunar problem was allowed to generate the trajectory. The cislunar trajectory guidance and generation problem is broken into three distinct phases, all of which are equally important. These phases are the Orbital Plane Alignment, the Midcourse cislunar transfer, and the Capture and Circularization to the target orbit. The restricted three-body formulation is used to model the dynamical system and perturbations on the trajectory in the Earth-Moon system. A cislunar trajectory generation computer model, LOWTHRST, was developed to evaluate this low-thrust cislunar guidance methodology. The model allows the determination of some of the low-thrust orbital transfer vehicle's operational characteristics. These operation characteristics include the following: time-of-flight, propellant mass, payload mass, and thrusting history. Transfers from both Earth orbit to lunar orbit and from lunar orbit back to Earth orbit are considered. Several example cases were run using only the Orbital Plane Alignment segment of LOWTHRST to establish that this phase was working properly and to focus on the performance of the plane alignment algorithms. In order to evaluate the whole program, four complete cislunar case studies were made with the LOWTHRST model. Two Earth to Moon, and two Moon to Earth trajectories were generated, each with different spacecraft mass and propulsion system characteristics. The principal goal of this research was to develop a prototype guidance methodology for cislunar low-thrust spacecraft. The performance of the guidance algorithms in the computer model has indicated the fulfillment of this goal. The LOWTHRST trajectory model developed in this research also provides a mission analyst and planner with the capability to easily develop cislunar trajectories and evaluate EOTV characteristics that can satisfy NASA mission architectures. This capability could help show the relative worth of low-thrust nuclear electric spacecraft for cislunar operations and provide the ability for quick mission analysis.

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