Print Email Facebook Twitter Searching for two optimal trajectories Title Searching for two optimal trajectories: A study on different approaches to global optimization of gravity-assist trajectories that have a backup departure opportunity Author Perdeck, Matthias (TU Delft Aerospace Engineering) Contributor Cowan, K.J. (mentor) Degree granting institution Delft University of Technology Programme Aerospace Engineering Date 2018-06-07 Abstract In interplanetary space missions, it is convenient to have a second departure opportunity in case the first is missed. Two distinct approaches to minimizing the maximum of the two Delta-V budgets of such a trajectory pair, are developed. The first (‘a priori’) approach optimizes the variables of both trajectories at once. The second (‘a posteriori’) approach first minimizes Delta-V budgets for a range of discrete departure epochs, and then selects the pair of which the highest Delta-V is minimum. Furthermore, five different pruning and biasing methods are developed, these prove critical for computational efficiency (number of objective function evaluations). Application to three different gravity-assist (and deep space maneuver) trajectories to Saturn, reveals that the a priori approach is more computationally efficient on a trajectory with few variables (3) and that the a posteriori approach is more computationally efficient on a trajectory with many variables (22). Subject interplanetarytrajectoryoptimizationoptimisationgravity-assitspaceflightflyby To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:99d5ed9a-c706-4cb6-8caa-9dbc8c9822c9 Embargo date 2023-06-07 Part of collection Student theses Document type master thesis Rights © 2018 Matthias Perdeck Files PDF thesisMatthiasPerdeck.pdf 5.9 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid%3A99d5ed9a-c706-4cb6-8caa-9dbc8c9822c9/datastream/OBJ/view