Minimum fuel spacecraft reorientation

Abstract

Fuel optimal solutions for the reorientation of an inertially symmetric rigid spacecraft with independent 3-axes controls are investigated. All possible optimal control strategies are identified. These include bangbang solutions, finite order singular arcs and infinite order singular arcs. Higher order necessary conditions for optimality of finite order singular arcs are presented. Numerical examples of fuel optimal solutions with fixed maneuver time are presented involving all of the theoretically possible control logics.