Optimal Trajectory Design for Asteroid Deflection Mission

Abstract

The trajectory design associated with the deflection of potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) is considered. At the terminal mission phase, low-thrust guidance control is used to compensate state errors and to change the intercept angle from nominal one to meet mission requirements. In this paper, the robust trajectory design using low-thrust acceleration is considered. We employ the generating functions approach proposed by Guibout and Scheeres (2004) and investigate its application to robust terminal guidance control. Our approach is illustrated through the study of the asteroid deflection mission.