Minimum-Fuel Finite-Thrust Low-Earth Orbit Aeroassisted Orbital Transfer of Small Spacecraft

The problem of minimum-fuel finite-thrust low-Earth orbit small spacecraft heating rate-constrained aeroassisted orbital transfer with an inclination change is considered. The trajec-tory design is described in detail and the aeroassisted orbital transfer is posed as a nonlinear optimal control problem. The optimal control problem is solved using an established open-source optimal control software. It is found for heating rate-unconstrained cases that the fuel consumption is insensitive to the number of atmospheric passes, whereas for heating rate-constrained cases the fuel consumption decreases as a function of the number of atmospheric passes. The key features of the optimal trajectories are identified. The results of this re-search demonstrate the efficiency of the aeroassisted orbital transfer when compared with a finite-thrust all-propulsive transfer