OPTIMAL USE OF PERTURBATIONS FOR SPACE MISSIONS
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In this study we try to use orbital perturbations as an aid in orbital maneuvers. This idea is certainly not new, and has been applied in the past, especially limited to the J2 effect on the RAAN and argument of perigee. However, here the idea is taken much further, and the combined effect of many different perturbations is taken into account. To achieve this, a propagator based on the SGP4 method is used. Each orbit can be considered a point in a 6-dimensional space, and each can be propagated either backward or forward in time to determine a trajectory in such hyperspace; the method proposed here, given a starting and final orbits, propagates them both in time, respectively forward and backward, and then, via a genetic algorithm set to minimize the total V, finds the optimal points along the propagated trajectories to apply impulses and connect the two. This can be adapted to use more than 2 impulses and to solve rendezvous problems also. Possible applications range from simple improvement on the classical transfer maneuvers, to entirely new techniques studied for instance to deploy satellites belonging to the same constellation.
