ChristopherRabotin / smd

Space Mission Design - A SPICE-enhanced continuous thrust interplanetary mission propagator and vizualizer
MIT License
27 stars 5 forks source link

Spiral in/out using Cartesian and just increasing the velocity #49

Closed ChristopherRabotin closed 7 years ago

ChristopherRabotin commented 7 years ago

The semi major axis optimization isn't necessary the best for this. The vehicle keeps on hitting the right spot but it cannot seem to do the transition correctly from helio to SOI.

ChristopherRabotin commented 7 years ago

So a quick and easy way to solve this is by simply have the thrust work in Cartesian form only, and having the missing in truly three difference segments: the spiral out (Cartesian + pure velocity thrust), the optimization segment to target a given heliocentric orbit (maybe just target Mars itself), and from the output of this last one, do the Cartesian propagation from a hyperbolic Mars orbit (but relatively close to Mars) and slow down with pure anti tangential burn.

ChristopherRabotin commented 7 years ago

Next attempt: propagate until SOI boundary reach, right before being hyperbolic, and instead of transitioning to helio orbit, propagate back to a smaller radii orbit (ReachDistance) and once there, target a specific Earth centric orbit. Then do the same around Mars. If that works, it should be possible to run the simulation in such a way to target Mars itself (that would go in #34) instead of an orbit about Mars, and once in that orbit perform an anti tangential correction, and then target a given orbit. (This might be the key, especially since targeting Mars directly has worked much better in the past than targeting an orbit about Mars.)

ChristopherRabotin commented 7 years ago

HOW ABOUT THAT! (Maybe a bit too happy)

This shows the vehicle going from a GTO to a hyperbolic (via the ToHyperbolic waypoint) and then back to a highly elliptical orbit (e=0.9) (via to ToElliptical waypoint).

screenshot_20170207_175812