Fuel-optimal propulsive reboost of flexible spacecraft

Abstract

This paper presents for the first time an exact solution to the fuel-optimal propulsive reboost problem for flexible spacecraft. The spacecraft undergoes rigid-body motion and flexible-body motion, and reboost is achieved propulsively through the use of reaction control jets. The exact fuel-optimal solution to the associated minimization problem is found numerically based on an adaptive grid bisection search. The reboost of the floating harmonic oscillator reveals properties of the fuel-optimal solution. Nondimensional plots of minimum fuel vs maneuver time expose the nature of the solution classes depending on the maneuver time. Some very interesting properties are observed, among them the shifting of impulses to the smaller oscillator mass. Comparisons are made with near fuel-optimal solutions obtained by other investigators.

Fuel/Time Optimal Control of Flexible Space Structures: A Frequency Domain Approach

“…In most of these studies, the optimization objective has been the minimization of the maneuver time (Singh, Kabamba, and McClamroch, 1989;Singh and Vadali, 1994), the fuel consumed (Seywald et al, 1994;Silverberg and Redmond, 1993), or a weighted combination of both (Vander Velde and He, 1983;Hartmann, 1994). Since most large space structures are inherently restricted in weight, the structure is usually assumed to possess significant flexibility Recently, Seywald et al (1994) investigated all possible control logics including singular controls in fuel optimal solutions for a rigid spacecraft reorientation problem.…”

“…Since most large space structures are inherently restricted in weight, the structure is usually assumed to possess significant flexibility Recently, Seywald et al (1994) investigated all possible control logics including singular controls in fuel optimal solutions for a rigid spacecraft reorientation problem. Silverberg and Redmond (1993) presented an exact numerical solution for fuel optimal reboost control problem for flexible spacecraft by using an adaptive Grid Bisection method. Singh, Kabamba, and McClamroch (1989) revealed the antisymmetric time property of time-optimal control profiles for rest-to-rest slewing maneuvers of flexible spacecrafts.…”