Linearized Impulsive Fixed-Time Fuel-Optimal Space rendezvous: A New Numerical Approach

Abstract : This paper focuses on the fixed-time minimum-fuel rendezvous between close elliptic orbits of an active spacecraft with a passive target spacecraft, assuming a linear impulsive setting and a Keplerian relative motion. Following earlier works developed in the 1960s, the original optimal control problem is transformed into a semi-infinite convex optimization problem using a relaxation scheme and duality theory in normed linear spaces. A new numerical convergent algorithm based on discretization methods is designed to solve this problem. Its solution is then used in a general simple procedure dedicated to the computation of the optimal velocity increments and optimal impulses locations. It is also shown that the semi-infinite convex programming has an analytical solution for the out-of-plane rendezvous problem. Different realistic numerical examples illustrate these results.