Constrained trajectory generation for micro-satellite formation flying

Abstract

Station-keeping and reorientation control ofa cluster off ully-actuated low-thrust micro-satellites is considered in this paper. We propose a very general optimization based control methodology to solve constrained trajectory generation problems for stationkeeping and reorientation. By taking advantage ofthe f ully-actuated structure ofthe micro-satellite, it is possible to compute the control on-board the micro-satellites. Performance of this methodology is reported for a typical micro-satellite formation flying space mission using the Nonlinear Trajectory Generation software package.