AOTVの大気圏飛行における最適軌道について

抄録

Many studies have shown the advantages of an Aeroassisted Orbital Transfer Vehicle (AOTV) which uses aerodynamic forces during an atmospheric pass to achieve orbital changes. This paper discusses optimal aeroassisted maneuvers to return from Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). A trajectory optimization problem minimizing the total velocity change was formulated as a nonlinear programming problem, and numerical solutions were computed by the Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) method. The optimal trajectories are useful for the performance evaluation of vehicles or the design of flight profiles.