Trajectory design and guidance for landing on Phobos

While common Descent and Landing strategies involve extended periods of forced motion, significant fuel savings could be achieved by exploiting the natural dynamics in the vicinity of the target. However, small bodies are characterised by perturbed and poorly known dynamics environments, calling for robust autonomous guidance, navigation and control. Airbus Defence and Space and the University of Bristol have been contracted by the UK Space Agency to investigate the optimisation of landing trajectories, including novel approaches from the dynamical systems theory, and robust nonlinear control techniques, with an application to the case of a landing on the Martian moon Phobos. © 2018

guidance invariant manifolds landing libration point orbits small bodies trajectory design dynamical systems electronic guidance systems fuel economy trajectories autonomous guidance invariant manifolds landing trajectory libration point orbits robust non-linear controls small bodies trajectory designs university of bristol landing

Trajectory design and guidance for landing on Phobos Articles