Trajectory optimisation of asteroids billiard

Abstract

Since 2005, the Global Trajectory Optimisation Competition, GTOC, has taken place almost every year. Over time, its popularity has grown amongst the aerospace community and prestigious institutions like NASA or the ESA actually participated to this competition. The goal is always the same: the design of a interplanetary trajectory. The problem is, each time, nearly impossible to solve and every solution proposed by the teams composed a huge database. All those solution could of course be used in the future for scientific missions.

This thesis will take an interest at the fourth edition of the competition called: "Asteroids Billiard". For this mission, a list of Near Earth Asteroids, NEA, is provided and the goal is, starting from the Earth, to flyby as many asteroids as possible before performing a rendezvous with a last one. The design of this trajectory is based on solving Lambert's problem between asteroids and choosing the trajectory that minimizes the fuel consumption. The more trajectories are computed, the more our search can be focus on long chains thanks to the analysis of those first trajectories.