Optimal control of solar sails

A. Herasimenka, J.-B. Caillau, L. Dell’Elce, J.-B. Pomet

Selected by ESA Open Space Innovation Platform for a research co-sponsorship (2020-2023)

Solar sails enable ambitious and cost-efficient space missions to achieve interplanetary transfers, end-of-life disposal of LEO satellites, and space-based geoengineering. Optimal control theory has previously been used to design interplanetary transfers, whose manoeuvring time is generally of the order of one heliocentric orbit. On the contrary, multi-revolution Earth escape or de-orbiting trajectories have been addressed by means of sub-optimal feedback control laws, which do not lend themselves to the inclusion of precise initial or final conditions. Our research focusses on optimal (mostly minimum time) control methods for multi-revolution manoeuvres.