Orbital Rendezvous Guidance Strategy for Time-Sensitive Missions

A fixed-time orbital rendezvous guidance strategy was proposed to meet the requirements of the time-sensitive pursuit-capture game mission. A key problem of fixed-time orbit rendezvous is the design of deceleration guidance strategy and the choice of transfer time. In order to solve the deceleration guidance problem under limited thrust, a displacement formula under constant rocket thrust is proposed. Basing on the formula, a deceleration guidance strategy of "pulse correction, deceleration condition, inverse-relative-velocity deceleration" was designed so that the spacecraft can meet the terminal position constraint. Basing on the formula, a deceleration guidance strategy of "pulse correction, deceleration condition, inverse-relative-velocity deceleration" was designed so that the spacecraft can meet the terminal position constraint. For the mission time delay caused by deceleration process, a differential correction method was designed based on the displacement formula, which can obtain the Lambert transfer time corresponding to a given mission time. With the proposed method, the mission time error is reduced less than 1 s.