Low-Thrust Station-Keeping Strategy toward Exploiting the Resonances in the Geostationary Region
Publication: Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 37, Issue 2
Abstract
Low-thrust propulsion systems are widely used in space missions due to their high specific impulse and reduced propellant consumption. However, current research focuses on eliminating drifts in low-thrust maneuvers, resulting in high operational costs for daily station-keeping. This study aims to achieve autonomous station-keeping by exploiting long-term periodic behaviors caused by geostationary resonances. First, resonance maps caused by the Earth’s gravity and lunisolar perturbation are revisited. Then, station-keeping slots are selected based on a phase space study of the resonances. A closed station-keeping track is formed by designing a low-thrust arc to work with the drifting arc. This track moves along the edge of the station-keeping slot, providing a more extended control period and reducing ground-station operational costs. Finally, an indirect optimizing method and efficient initial costate guess technique are proposed for calculating low-thrust maneuvers.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This work has received funding from National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 12202025 and 11825201), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Nos. 2022M710295 and 2021TQ0024), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (Grant Agreement No. 679086–COMPASS), and the National Defense Pre-Research Foundation of China (No. D030309). Part of the work was included in an oral speech in the 8th European Conference for Aeronautics and Aerospace Sciences (EUCASS) (Li et al. 2019a). Thanks for the comments and suggestions from the chairman and the audience.
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© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Jun 29, 2023
Accepted: Sep 29, 2023
Published online: Dec 26, 2023
Published in print: Mar 1, 2024
Discussion open until: May 26, 2024
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