Trajectory Control During an Aeroassisted Maneuver Between Coplanar Circular Orbits

ABSTRACT: This paper presents the simulation results of an aeroassisted maneuver around the Earth, between coplanar circular orbits, from a geostationary orbit to a low orbit. The simulator developed considers a reference trajectory and a trajectory perturbed by external disturbances combined with non-idealities of sensors and actuators. It is able to operate in closed loop, controlling the trajectory (drag-free control) at each instant of time using a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller and propulsive jets. We adopted a spacecraft with a cubic body composed of two rectangular pl...