Numerical Solution for the Single-Impulse Flyby Co-Orbital Spacecraft Problem

Abstract

The traversal inspection of satellites in satellite constellations or geosynchronous orbits has been a focus of research. A large number of variable orbit requirements in the “single-to-single” mode severely affects the efficiency of inspections. To address this problem, this study investigated the problem of a single-impulse flyby co-orbiting two spacecraft and proposed a derivative-free numerical solution method that used the geometric relationship between the two intersections of the target and transfer orbits of the flyby problem in order to transform them into a nonlinear equation in a single variable for a given impulse time. The validity of the proposed method was verified using numerical examples. While the Lambert problem is one of the bases for solving the variable orbit problem, on-star intelligent control also raises the requirements for speed. To address this problem, this study also investigated the Lambert problem in a single-impulse flyby co-orbiting two spacecraft and determined the iterative initial value by constructing a quadratic interpolation equation between the inverse of the transfer time and the vertical component of the eccentric vector, the derivative-free quadratic interpolation cut-off method was proposed. Using 100,000 random tests showed that computational efficiency was improved by more than one order of magnitude compared with commonly used methods, with a calculation error of less than 10−6.