Approximated Closed-Form Solution to Energy-Optimal Satellite Formation Reconfiguration Near Elliptic Orbits

摘要

SATELLITE formation Hying has emerged as an enabling technology that can benefit various space missions by replacing a large, expensive, and monolithic satellite with smaller, cheaper, and multiple satellites. One of the key advantages of the technology is that it can enhance mission flexibility by enabling satellites to reconfigure their formation as required to achieve different mission objectives. It also improves reliability of mission operation, as operational functions are distributed over multiple satellites, and thus the effect of any faulty satellite on the entire mission operation can be effectively alleviated. These benefits, however, come with the cost of increased complexity in controlling multiple satellites, especially in designing a guidance law for satellites to change their relative positions and/or velocities, which is also known as the formation reconfiguration problem.