Title:
Design Space Pruning Heuristics and Global Optimization Method for Conceptual Design of Low-Thrust Asteroid Tour Missions
Design Space Pruning Heuristics and Global Optimization Method for Conceptual Design of Low-Thrust Asteroid Tour Missions
Author(s)
Alemany, Kristina
Braun, Robert D.
Braun, Robert D.
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Abstract
Electric propulsion has recently become a viable technology for spacecraft, enabling shorter flight times,
fewer required planetary gravity assists, larger payload masses, and/or smaller launch vehicles. With the
maturation of this technology, however, comes a new set of challenges in the area of trajectory design. In 2006, the
2nd Global Trajectory Optimization Competition (GTOC2) posed a difficult mission design problem: to design the
best possible low-thrust trajectory, in terms of final mass and total mission time, that would rendezvous with one
asteroid in each of four pre-defined groups. Even with recent advances in low-thrust trajectory optimization, a full
enumeration of this problem was not possible. This work presents a two-step methodology for determining the
optimum solution to a low-thrust, combinatorial asteroid rendezvous problem. First is a pruning step that uses a
heuristic sequence to quickly reduce the size of the design space. Second, a multi-level genetic algorithm is
combined with a low-thrust trajectory optimization method to locate the best solutions of the reduced design space.
The proposed methodology is then validated by applying it to a problem with a known solution.
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Date Issued
2008-09
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Text
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Paper
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