A numerical method for generating three-impulse minimum-time orbital transfer
- Paper ID
1976-IAF-014
- author
- company
Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
- country
U.S.A.
- year
1976
- abstract
A numerical method is presented for finding optimal three-impulse minimum-time transfer trajectories between specified position-velocity states. A test is first developed to check the optimality of two-inpulse transfer trajectories. When this test indicates that an additional interior impulse will reduce the transfer time, the numerical method is used to find the resulting three-impulse transfer trajectory. The possibility of allowing for initial and/or final coasting arcs is included in this numerical technique. A number of planar and noncoplanar examples of minimum-time three-impulse transfer trajectories with and without initial or final coasting arcs are presented and discussed.