Formation of multiple landers for asteroid detumbling

Abstract

This work develops a method for ascertaining the landing locations and thruster orientations of a formation of multiple spacecraft on an irregular asteroid for discrete time optimal detumbling control, as a prerequisite to asteroid redirection. Asteroid geometries are known to be extremely irregular, especially for small asteroids, which are the typical targets for redirection missions. The method entails the modelling of asteroids as convex polyhedra with triangular facets, and computing the mass and inertial properties through the divergence theorem and Green’s theorem. Given the asteroid geometry, mass, and inertial properties, the feasible lander locations and thruster orientations are determined. The model ensures full attitude control of the asteroid, using multiple spacecraft with fixed-orientation, low-thrust modules, through measures imposed on the location and orientation of each thruster. A linear control scheme is employed to assess the time and fuel requirements of the asteroid detumbling maneuver, given feasible spacecraft formation configurations and thruster orientations. The method then assesses the detumbling time performance of each formation configuration to determine the discrete optimal landed formation configuration for a given asteroid. Simulations are performed to demonstrate the method using an irregular asteroid with characteristics derived from available asteroid data. Extensions of the method are further discussed in light of the results.