Orbital study of the motion of spacecrafts

Abstract

The main goal of the present proposal is to continue the study of the methods used in the calculation of optimal space trajectories, from the point of view of minimum fuel consumption for a spacecraft to travel between two given orbits. Several choices for the dynamics, controller and optimization techniques will be considered. Classical methods (Hohmann transfer, bi-elliptical transfer, etc...) and modern methods (using gravitational capture and swing-bys) will be studied. It is a continuation of the research that the proponent developed during his master at the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais - INPE (Brazil, 1987-1989); training at the International Space University (France, 1989); Ph.D. at The Universidade of Texas (USA, 1990-1993), professor at the Mecânica Espacial e Controle graduate school at Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais - INPE (Brazil, 1994-presente), researcher for CNPq (from august 1995 to the present time), proponent of a Jovem-Pesquisador-FAPESP from june-1996 to june-2000 (process 95/09290-1) and in several regular research project from FAPESP. There are many goals that this project is willing to reach. The main one is the realization of new and original research to generalize and/or amplify existent results and to develop new methods. In this task, many graduate and undergraduate students are already involved. (AU)