Organizational Unit:
Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 15
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    Translunar Logistics with Low-Energy Transfers
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-08) Gollins, Nick ; Shimane, Yuri ; Ho, Koki
    Low-energy lunar transfers (LETs) utilize three-body mechanics with fourth-body (solar) perturbations to provide an alternative to direct lunar transfers. The offer of reduced lunar orbit insertion cost in exchange for longer time-of-flight and potentially higher transfer insertion cost presents an interesting trade-off when planning the logistics of multi-mission lunar exploration campaigns. This is particularly true for logistics featuring spacecraft with a variety of launch vehicles and propellant types, as the logistics of each spacecraft are impacted by the costs and benefits of LETs differently. This paper presents a translunar logistics model featuring LETs, discusses the trade-offs versus direct transfers through some case studies, and highlights the scenarios in which LETs prove most useful.
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    Optimization of Earth-Moon Low-Thrust-Enhanced Low-Energy Transfer
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-08) Takubo, Yuji ; Shimane, Yuri ; Ho, Koki
    This work proposes an optimization method for the novel class of lunar transfer that leverages both low-thrust acceleration and weak stability boundary effects simultaneously. Such translunar orbits are aimed at filling the gap that exists in conventional transfer options in the trade-off between the time of flight and mass ratio. We first generate the candidates for the initial guess via backward propagation from a cislunar periodic orbit. These trajectories are corrected into feasible solutions, then further optimized based on a multiple-shooting method with a Sims-Flanagan transcription. The obtained transfer time of the solutions is around 45-70 days, which is almost half of the traditional ballistic transfers (90-110 days) with a few percent increase in its propellant mass, showing a huge benefit of performing the low-thrust propulsion in the Earth-Moon low-energy transfer.
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    Characterizing Low-Thrust Transfers from Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbits to Low Lunar Orbits with Q-Law
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-08) Shimane, Yuri ; Preston, Dyllon ; Ho, Koki
    Near rectilinear halo orbits (NRHOs) are an integral orbital regime in humanity's permanent return to cislunar space. Traffic between the NRHO and low-lunar orbit (LLO) is expected to increase dramatically, supporting cislunar activities. Linking NRHOs and LLOs via low-thrust transfers will be a vital piece of transportation infrastructure. This work provides an assessment of low-thrust transfers from NRHOs to LLOs using Q-law, a Lyapyunov feedback controller based on Keplerian elements, treating the Earth as a third-body perturbation. Leveraging the deterministic nature of Q-law, low-thrust transfers between NRHOs and LLOs are characterized for various propulsion systems, spacecraft mass, and departure windows.
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    Sensitivity Analysis of Separation Time Along Weak Stability Boundary Transfers
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-08) Nolton, Isabel ; Tomita, Kento ; Shimane, Yuri ; Lee, Hang Woon ; Ho, Koki
    This study analyzes the sensitivity of the dynamics around Weak Stability Boundary Transfers (WSBT) in the elliptical restricted three-body problem. With WSBTs increasing popularity for cislunar transfers, understanding its inherently chaotic dynamics becomes pivotal for guiding and navigating cooperative spacecrafts as well as detecting non-cooperative objects. We introduce the notion of separation time to gauge the deviation of a point near a nominal WSBT from the trajectory's vicinity. Employing the Cauchy-Green tensor to identify stretching directions in position and velocity, the separation time, along with the Finite-Time Lyapunov Exponent are studied within a ball of state uncertainty scaled to typical orbit determination performances.
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    Cislunar Satellite Constellation Design via Integer Linear Programming
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-08) Patel, Malav ; Shimane, Yuri ; Ho, Koki
    Cislunar space awareness is of increasing interest to the international community as Earth-Moon traffic is projected to increase. This raises the problem of placing satellites optimally in a constellation to provide satisfactory coverage for said traffic. The Circular Restricted 3 Body Problem (CR3BP) provides promising periodic orbits in the Earth-Moon rotating frame for traffic monitoring. This work converts a spatially and temporally varying traffic coverage requirement into an integer linear programming problem, attempting to minimize the number of satellites required for the requested coverage.
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    Costates Feedback Control for Mass-Optimal Low-Thrust Transfers
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-08) Shimane, Yuri ; Izzo, Dario ; Ho, Koki
    Designing efficient low-thrust trajectories involves solving optimal control problems, which can be computationally intensive. One promising approach to tackle this challenge is to use a neural network (NN) as a scheme for obtaining the control input that guides the spacecraft to its targeted orbit. This work explores the use of a NN for learning the costates from the current and targeted states, which can be used together with Pontryagin's maximum principle and optimal control theory to derive the control to provide a feedback loop for controlling the spacecraft. In effect, this is a policy approximation scheme, even though it does not explicitly have the controls as its output. The proposed method is applied to a set of orbits departing from near-ecliptic near-Earth object targeting the Earth's orbit for a mass optimal orbit transfer.
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    Methods for Dual-Objective High-Energy Tour Design
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-08) Shimane, Yuri ; Iiyama, Keidai
    High-energy, multi-fly-by tours are a complex design task that typically arises in planetary moon tours, such as those of the Jupiterian or Saturnian systems. Inspired by this challenge, the 2022 edition of the Space Optimisation Competition (SpOC) organized by the Advanced Concepts Team included a problem involving a ΔV and time of flight optimization of a tour visiting the seven planets of the Trappist-1 star system. This work introduces the preliminary analyses and heuristics developed to tackle the multiobjective optimization problem, along with the results found for the Trappist-1 tour problem.
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    Optimizing Multi-spacecraft Cislunar Space Domain Awareness Systems via Hidden-Genes Genetic Algorithm
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-07-07) Visonneau, Lois ; Shimane, Yuri ; Ho, Koki
    This paper proposes an optimization problem formulation to tackle the challenges of cislunar Space Domain Awareness (SDA) through multi-spacecraft monitoring. Due to the large volume of interest as well as the richness of the dynamical environment, traditional design approaches for Earth-based architectures are known to have challenges in meeting design requirements for the cislunar SDA; thus, there is a growing need to have a multi-spacecraft system in cislunar orbits for SDA. The design of multi-spacecraft-based cislunar SDA architecture results in a complex multi-objective optimization problem, where parameters such as number of spacecraft, observability, and orbit stability must be taken into account simultaneously. Through the use of a multi-objective hidden genes genetic algorithm, this study explores the entirety of the design space associated with the cislunar SDA problem. A demonstration case study shows that our approach can provide architectures optimized for both cost and effectiveness.
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    Concurrent Optimization of Gravity-Assist Low-Thrust Trajectory with Power Propulsion Subsystem Sizing
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-08) Shimane, Yuri ; Preston, Dyllon ; Ho, Koki
    Low-thrust technology is a key driver in current and upcoming space exploration missions due to their high specific impulse. A challenge when designing low thrust trajectories is due to the inherent coupling of the power and propulsion subsystems with the trajectory, as the spacecraft mass greatly affect the obtainable acceleration by a given propulsion subsystem. To this end, this work proposes an approach for coupling the sizing process of the power and propulsion subsystems to a direct-transcription-based trajectory optimization problem, which enables a concurrent trade-space exploration of both the trajectory and the spacecraft design.
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    System Design and Analysis for Cislunar Space Domain Awareness Through Distributed Sensors
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-08) Badura, Gregory ; Shimane, Yuri ; Gregoire, Alaric ; Patel, Rohan ; Gilmartin, Matthew ; Gangolli, Kunal ; Visonneau, Lois ; Tysor, Joshua ; Manojkumar, Saikrishna ; Humphrey, Francis ; Valenta, Christopher ; Blair, Reilly ; Lourenco, Nelson ; Hodkin, Jason ; Sudol, Alicia ; Borowitz, Mariel ; Gunter, Brian C. ; Christian, John A. ; Ho, Koki
    This paper summarizes an ongoing Georgia Tech effort to provide a cislunar space domain awareness (SDA) solution based on distributed space-based sensors that complement existing Earth-based assets. Distributed space-based SDA architectures complement one another via a diverse constellation geometry to overcome the sensing limitations of any single architecture. Our unique technical approach to this solution focuses on analyzing the links to a "Cislunar Custody Chain" via a diverse team of sensor, policy, and orbital dynamics experts. Our analysis will provide solutions towards creating the best actionable policy knowledge given the challenges of tracking and detecting objects within the Cislunar volume.