Multi-Satellite Reconfiguration of Formation around Libration Point

Abstract

Multi-satellite reconfiguration of a formation flying around the halo orbit of the Sun-Earth restricted three-body system is investigated using a bi-impulse maneuver. We conclude that the Beginning-Ending (BE) method is the most energy-efficient of all bi-impulse methods assuming that the reconfiguration time is short in comparison to the orbital period. With constraints of energy balance and collision a voidance, the multi-satellite reconfiguration problem is converted to a parameter optimization problem to obtain the optimum solution. Within the constraints, energy consumption is distributed more evenly among satellites and collision is avoided. Several numerical examples validate the conclusions. Both energy and time are optimized by introducing a hybrid cost function and the results show that the weight coefficient between time and energy has a large effect the reconfiguration trajectory greatly.