A global analysis of the two-terminal trajectory family through one fixed point and another variable point in space by using the normalized hodographic mapping
- Paper ID
1976-IAF-003
- author
- company
Institute of Applied Mathematics, National Tsing Hua University
- country
Republic of China
- year
1976
- abstract
A global analysis of the family of two-terminal trajectories is presented. One terminal point is assumed fixed, and another one varying its position in a fixed direction. The purpose of this analysis is to give an overall view of the geometric and kinematic structures of the family and many of its subfamilies so as to provide a broad basis for preliminary mission planning, trajectory optimization, and solution of many orbital problems in which two- terminal trajectories are involved. In view of the complexity of the geometric structure of such a family in the configuration space the method of normalized hodographic mapping is employed instead of the usual analytic method. The characteristic features of the family and its subfamilies, and limitations on their orbital elements thus found are summarized.