Modeling Low-thrust Interplanetary Trajectories

Demonstrates how to model a low-thrust interplanetary trajectory from Earth to Mars.

This submission is a MATLAB script named demo_low_thrust that demonstrates how to model a low-thrust interplanetary trajectory from Earth to Mars. The optimal flight controls (pitch angle, yaw angle and throttle setting) for this script can be determined using a FORTRAN program named ilt_sos.

The important features of this MATLAB script are as follows:

• maximize final spacecraft mass
• low-thrust, patched-n-body interplanetary flyby and rendezvoustrajectory modeling
• modified equinoctial orbital element equations of motion
• JPL DE430 planetary ephemeris

This script reads JPL planetary ephemerides in a machine-independent binary format which are available from the SPICE web site. These *.bsp ephemeris files are IEEE-Little Endian style of binary kernel. This is the binary form native to PC/Linux, PC/Windows and MAC/Intel machines. Additional information about JPL ephemerides can be found at http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/.

The demo_low_thrust script also uses routines from the MICE software suite to read and evaluate the JPL binary ephemeris file. Platform-specific MICE mex files, support functions and the binary ephemeris files are available at naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/toolkit_MATLAB.html. MICE is a MATLAB implementation of the SPICE library created by JPL.

A Windows executable program, FORTRAN source code and PDF documentation for ilt_sos can be downloaded from the following site; https://sourceforge.net/projects/aero-trajectory-optimization/files/ilt_sos.zip/download.

A Raspberry Pi executable program, FORTRAN source code and PDF documentation for ilt_sos can be downloaded from the following site; https://sourceforge.net/projects/aero-traj-optim-gfortran-raspi/files/Low-thrust%20Interplanetary%20Trajectory%20Optimization/ilt_sos.zip/download