2022 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 105-109
Thrust magnitude of a lunar lander is discussed in this paper. Most fuel of a lunar lander is consumed in a powered descending phase from a lunar parking orbit to a landing point on the moon surface. Therefore, it is important to reduce the fuel consumption in this phase. The trajectories in the phase are designed using optimal control theory as solutions of minimum fuel consumption problem in this paper. The results of numerical calculations show that the optimum thrust exists. Moreover, the optimum non-dimensional thrust, the ratio of maximum thrust and hovering thrust, is almost same against the different parameters in equations of motion and initial conditions.
