Solar radiation pressure-based orbit control for small-body missions

Solar Radiation Pressure (SRP)-based orbit control offers promising potential for next-generation asteroid missions. Considering the limitations of traditional SRP control strategies in handling highly non-Keplerian SRP-induced orbits, this paper presents a novel control scheme designed to exploit SRP for geometrically constrained orbital control around small bodies, applicable to both periodic orbit maintenance and landing trajectory control. The system dynamics are augmented and linearized near the nominal trajectory, incorporating SRP effects through the spacecraft-Sun line angles and spacecraft illumination parameters. Through the surface of section mapping, the linearization framework is transformed from time-driven to section geometric feature matching, fundamentally eliminating the sensitivity to flight time. A linearization-based SRP control scheme is established, achieving precise control of orbital geometric characteristics through the solution of constrained optimization problems within a trajectory prediction-correction framework. Numerical simulations on terminator orbit maintenance and asteroid landing scenarios validate the scheme’s efficiency under realistic perturbations, demonstrating robustness against uncertainties, such as initial deviations, irregular gravity fields, and stochastic accelerations.