Mission Design Tool for Automated Missed-Thrust Design with Multiple Outages

Highly efficient low-thrust electric propulsion has enabled missions which previously were not possible using conventional chemical propulsion, such as Dawn’s mission to orbit two different asteroids. As electric propulsion becomes a more prevalent technology for missions, dealing with its unique mission design challenges becomes increasingly important. The low-thrust of these electric thrusters means a significant portion of the mission is spent thrusting, meaning that any disruption has the potential to drastically affect the trajectory of the spacecraft. Finding methods for best dealing with these events, whether by reducing their effect or finding the best way to recover is an important part of identifying and managing the risk profile for these missions. Research thus far on the topic has largely focused on single outages, while longer missions may have multiple outages. Existing research has largely used custom built scripts, specifically tailored to the missions being investigated, without any general tools to conduct the analysis. The goal of this project is to develop a tool to quantify and reduce the sensitivity of low-thrust trajectories to missed-thrust events. The tool will be built to handle multiple outages and a variety of different metrics and optimization options, with the goal of significantly improving the missed thrust analysis and design process.

Finding methods for best dealing with thrust disruptions, whether by reducing their effect or finding the best way to recover is an important part of identifying and managing the risk profile for these missions.

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