A COMPARISON OF FIXED-TERMINAL DIRECTION GUIDANCE LAWS FOR SPACECRAFT RENDEZVOUS

摘要

This work examines and compares two fixed-terminal direction guidance lawsto rendezvous with a target in circular orbit. Both laws exactly satisfy the constraint.The first algorithm is based on the optimization of a quadratic performanceindex. The second algorithm has as many constraints as degrees of freedomand is the guidance law utilized by the Space Shuttle. Similarities and differencesbetween the two approaches are discussed and numerical simulationsare presented.