New analytical results for AOTV guidance
Minimum energy-loss turns of an Aero-assisted, Orbital Transfer Vehicle (AOTV) performing the atmospheric portion of an orbital-plane-change maneuver are developed using the heading angle as the independent variable. Because the heading angle is monotonic, several difficulties previously encountered using the flight path angle, which is not monotonic, as the independent variable are eliminated. In addition, the solution of the optimal control problem reduces to the solution of a fourth-order polynomial which can be accomplished analytically.