Abstract
Space rescue is of crucial importance when sudden accidents occur during manned orbital flights. Various rescue plans have been proposed for returning crews to the Earth. However, some plans require several days to get the crew to a specified location, and some can only direct the crew to a vast sea area within a short period of time. This paper presents a rescue scheme using a low lift-to-drag ratio vehicle that can send the spacecraft crew to a designated landing point within 48 hours. The scheme presented combines two measures, namely a return trajectory maneuver and multiple-revolution orbital phasing, to fulfill the requirements of urgent deorbiting. The return trajectory maneuver extends the deorbit window, avoiding possible losses in system reliability induced by delays in space, while the orbital phasing steers the space emergency rescue vehicle to a selected deorbit point at a given time. A numerical simulation is done to verify the rescue scheme proposed. The results show that the scheme requires little re-entry maneuverability, few fuel consumption, and only one on-ground rescue site, which significantly simplifies the rescue system and reduces rescue cost.
