Simulation of mission with low-thrust spacecraft to near-Earth asteroid

Abstract

In recent years, the study of the small celestial bodies with stable Earth orbits is recognized as an urgent problem by scientists around the world. This is due to the relatively easy availability of such bodies and the ability to obtain important scientific results using the small spacecraft or even the nano-class spacecraft. The use of electric propulsion will further reduce the cost of such missions. However, at present, no methods have been developed for the formation of the control programs and the spacecraft trajectories for such missions. This article is devoted to solving this problem. We obtained the optimal duration control program for the flight to the asteroid 2016NO3 based on the averaged equations of the spacecraft motion. We solved the simulation and the mission design problems for several different variants of the spacecraft design parameters.