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<p>Orbit determination<br />Space vehicles -- Control systems -- Design<br />Space vehicles -- Propulsion systems</p>
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Low-Thrust Control Of Orbital Elements, Nathan Harl
Low-Thrust Control Of Orbital Elements, Nathan Harl
Doctoral Dissertations
"This dissertation presents a method for controlling the orbital elements of a spacecraft using continuous low-thrust systems. The method involves the use of a general performance index, which is designed to minimize the difference between the instantaneous orbital elements of a spacecraft and some desired set of orbital elements. Due to the generality of the controller design, the resultant controller can be applied to a wide variety of scenarios about various bodies in space. To minimize the designed performance index, a shooting method and a Sequential Quadratic Programming algorithm are utilized and compared.
The primary application of the general controller …