Abstract
Time-optimal orbital transfers with soft terminal conditions are studied in this work. First, a two-layer thrust continuation method is devised. The unfavorable thrust continuation path is handled by switching between different solution curves. Second, the proposed method is applied to solving time-optimal transfers under two- or three-body dynamics with Cartesian coordinates to verify its effectiveness. The near conservation of the product between the time of flight and the thrust level is observed for general orbital transfers. A linear variation of this quantity with eccentricity is also illustrated when the difference in eccentricity between the initial and terminal orbits is large enough.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Prof. Hanlun Lei for the fruitful discussions. Y.W. thanks the support from China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2023M741638). X.H. thanks the support from National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 12233003).
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Methodology: Y.W.; Software: Y.W. and F.T.; Writing - original draft preparation: Y.W. and F.T.; Writing - review and editing: X.H. and F.T.; Simulation analysis: Y.W. and X.H.
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Wang, Y., Hou, X. & Topputo, F. Thrust continuation of time-optimal orbital transfers with soft terminal conditions. Astrophys Space Sci 369, 39 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-024-04303-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-024-04303-9