Copyright © 2012 Denilson Paulo Souza dos Santos et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Spacecraft maneuvers is a very important topic in aerospace engineering activities today. In a more generic way, a spacecraft maneuver has the objective of transferring a spacecraft from one orbit to another, taking into account some restrictions. In the present paper, the problem of rendezvous is considered. In this type of problem, it is necessary to transfer a spacecraft from one orbit to another, but with the extra constraint of meeting another spacecraft when reaching the final orbit. In particular, the present paper aims to analyze rendezvous maneuvers between two coplanar circular orbits, seeking to perform this transfer with lowest possible fuel consumption, assuming that this problem is time-free and using four burns during the process. The assumption of four burns is used to represent a constraint posed by a real mission. Then, a genetic algorithm is used to solve the problem. After that, a study is made for a maneuver that will make a spacecraft to encounter a planet, in order to make a close approach that will change its energy. Several simulations are presented.