2026-09-19T08:07:06Zhttps://dspace.mit.edu/server/oai/requestoai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/1270722021-07-05T14:03:20Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131023
David W. Miller.
Cabrales Hernandez, Alejandro D.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
2020-09-03T17:45:34Z
2020-09-03T17:45:34Z
2020
2020
https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127072
1191819275
Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, May, 2020
Cataloged from the official PDF of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 153-157).
The capability to rendezvous and dock with tumbling objects has become prominent with increased interest in active debris removal, satellite servicing, and in-space assembly. Guidance and control algorithms have been developed in the literature to allow for a spacecraft to capture an uncooperative and tumbling object under several constraints such as collision avoidance, speed bounds, and thruster saturation. However, current algorithms for this capability do not address plume impingement due to thrusters, which can lead to damage to the target object, and can require the use of nonlinear solvers that neither guarantee convergence of a solution nor be deployed in real-time using current computational capabilities of spacecraft. This thesis presents a quasi-analytical guidance algorithm that allows for a spacecraft to soft-dock with a target, avoids plume impingement, and allows for real-time generation of trajectories with low computational expense. Several test cases compare the solution from this algorithm against a solution using pseudospectral methods and show similar performance at less than 0.1% computational cost, and an example scenario for docking with the the European Space Agency's ENVISAT is presented. Additionally, a discrete transport trajectory optimizer is presented for use as a first cut solution to transporting several components to the same halo orbit for in-space assembly.
by Alejandro D. Cabrales Hernandez.
S.M.
S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
157 pages
eng
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Real-time quasi-analytical trajectory generation for docking with tumbling objects
Thesis
application/pdf
2020-09-03T17:45:33Z
Publication
Master
Aero
unknown
unknown
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<Abstract>The capability to rendezvous and dock with tumbling objects has become prominent with increased interest in active debris removal, satellite servicing, and in-space assembly. Guidance and control algorithms have been developed in the literature to allow for a spacecraft to capture an uncooperative and tumbling object under several constraints such as collision avoidance, speed bounds, and thruster saturation. However, current algorithms for this capability do not address plume impingement due to thrusters, which can lead to damage to the target object, and can require the use of nonlinear solvers that neither guarantee convergence of a solution nor be deployed in real-time using current computational capabilities of spacecraft. This thesis presents a quasi-analytical guidance algorithm that allows for a spacecraft to soft-dock with a target, avoids plume impingement, and allows for real-time generation of trajectories with low computational expense. Several test cases compare the solution from this algorithm against a solution using pseudospectral methods and show similar performance at less than 0.1% computational cost, and an example scenario for docking with the the European Space Agency's ENVISAT is presented. Additionally, a discrete transport trajectory optimizer is presented for use as a first cut solution to transporting several components to the same halo orbit for in-space assembly.</Abstract>
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