A NUMERICAL-ANALYTICAL APPROACH BASED ON CANONICAL TRANSFORMATIONS FOR COMPUTING OPTIMAL LOW-THRUST TRANSFERS

A numerical-analytical procedure based on infinitesimal canonical transformations is developed for computing optimal time-fixed low-thrust limited power transfers (no rendezvous) between coplanar orbits with small eccentricities in an inverse-square force field. The optimization problem is formulated as a Mayer problem with a set of non-singular orbital elements as state variables. Second order terms in eccentricity are considered in the development of the maximum Hamiltonian describing the optimal trajectories. The two-point boundary value problem of going from an initial orbit to a final orbit is solved by means of a two-stage Newton-Raphson algorithm which uses an infinitesimal canonical transformation. Numerical results are presented for some transfers between circular orbits with moderate radius ratio, including a preliminary analysis of Earth-Mars and Earth-Venus missions.