Abstract:

According to the requirement of space applications such as spacecraft RVD, formation flight and in-orbit operation in high elliptical orbits, the relative motion between the spacecraft in high elliptical orbit is analyzed and modeled. Using the method of power series, the approximate solutions of the system are solved in two cases, i.e. under the impulse thrust control and under the constant thrust control. By the transformation of the system solutions and the reconstruction of the system states, three guidance laws for rendezvous are given. The pulse guidance law under the assumption of impulse thrust control is similar to Hill’s Guidance for near-circular orbit. However, the full state feedback guidance law under the assumption of constant thrust force control realizes the control of both relative position and relative velocity in the process of rendezvous guidance, hovering and tracking fly-around control. By constructing the new system states, the variable coefficient full state feedback guidance law improves the guidance accuracy of the relative velocity and reduces the maximal orbit control acceleration needed in the relative guidance process. The guidance effect of these three guidance laws is verified and compared by means of mathematical simulation. The methods proposed in this paper solve the relative rendezvous guidance, hovering and tracking fly-around control problem in the elliptical orbits.

Key words: Elliptical orbit, Rendezvous, Hovering and fly-around, Guidance, Generalized inverse transform, Full state feedback