Fuel and time optimal transfer of spacecrafts rendezvous using Lambert’s theorem and improved genetic algorithm

Abstract

The two coplanar elliptic-to-elliptic orbits transfer with two-impulse is considered in this paper. The problem is the rendezvous of two spacecrafts, and the target spacecraft is not fixed in its orbit, but keep moving as same as the tracing spacecraft. To solve the problem, the transfer time is computed using Lambertpsilas theorem and iterative algorithm. And improved genetic algorithm is also used to optimize objective function, which is the tradeoff between minimum-time and minimum-fuel. The other method to solve the problem uses improved genetic algorithm and Lambertpsilas theorem, which avoids the iterative algorithm. The simulations and orbital figures of simulation results show the feasibility and validity of the arithmetic proposed in this paper.