Analytical Solutions for Extremal Space Trajectories presents an overall treatment of the general optimal control problem, in particular, the Mayer's variational problem, with necessary and sufficient conditions of optimality. It also provides a detailed derivation of the analytical solutions of these problems for thrust arcs for the Newtonian, linear central and uniform gravitational fields. These solutions are then used to analytically synthesize the extremal and optimal trajectories for the design of various orbital transfer and powered descent and landing maneuvers. Many numerical examples utilizing the proposed analytical synthesis of the space trajectories and comparison analyses with numerically integrated solutions are provided. This book will be helpful for engineers and researchers of industrial and government organizations, and is also a great resource for university faculty and graduate and undergraduate students working, specializing or majoring in the fields of aerospace engineering, applied celestial mechanics, and guidance, navigation and control technologies, applied mathematics and analytical dynamics, and avionics software design and development. - Features an analyses of Pontryagin extremals and/or Pontryagin minimum in the context of space trajectory design - Presents the general methodology of an analytical synthesis of the extremal and optimal trajectories for the design of various orbital transfer and powered descent and landing maneuvers - Assists in developing the optimal control theory for applications in aerospace technology and space mission design

Advanced Problems and Methods for Space Flight Optimization presents the optimization theory and its application to space flight. This book covers a wide range of topics, including optimal guidance, general mathematical methods of optimization, optimal transfer trajectories, and optimization of design parameters. Organized into 15 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the approximate analytic solution developed for minimum fuel guidance from an arbitrary point on a hyperbolic orbit into a definite circular orbit. This text then determines the maximum range trajectory for a glider entering the Earth's atmosphere at a supercircular velocity. Other chapters consider the economical transfers between Keplerian orbits, which has made considerable progress in the time-free case. This book discusses as well the Pontryagin Maximum Principle used to determine the optimal transfers between arbitrary coaxial ellipses. The final chapter deals with the synthesis of minimum-fuel controls for a class of aerospace control problems. This book is a valuable resource for aerospace engineers.

This is a long-overdue volume dedicated to space trajectory optimization. Interest in the subject has grown, as space missions of increasing levels of sophistication, complexity, and scientific return - hardly imaginable in the 1960s - have been designed and flown. Although the basic tools of optimization theory remain an accepted canon, there has been a revolution in the manner in which they are applied and in the development of numerical optimization. This volume purposely includes a variety of both analytical and numerical approaches to trajectory optimization. The choice of authors has been guided by the editor's intention to assemble the most expert and active researchers in the various specialities presented. The authors were given considerable freedom to choose their subjects, and although this may yield a somewhat eclectic volume, it also yields chapters written with palpable enthusiasm and relevance to contemporary problems.

This book presents recent advances in space and celestial mechanics, with a focus on the N-body problem and astrodynamics, and explores the development and application of computational techniques in both areas. It highlights the design of space transfers with various modes of propulsion, like solar sailing and low-thrust transfers between libration point orbits, as well as a broad range of targets and applications, like rendezvous with near Earth objects. Additionally, it includes contributions on the non-integrability properties of the collinear three- and four-body problem, and on general conditions for the existence of stable, minimum energy configurations in the full N-body problem. A valuable resource for physicists and mathematicians with research interests in celestial mechanics, astrodynamics and optimal control as applied to space transfers, as well as for professionals and companies in the industry.

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