A greedy random adaptive search procedure for multi-rendezvous mission planning

Abstract

The paper proposes a new algorithm to optimize a sequence of rendezvous maneuvers by a spacecraft with multiple targets. The algorithm consists of two phases: the first phase generates feasible solutions of the problem using a greedy randomized adaptive search procedure, and the second phase performs local search about the constructed solution. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated by considering different cases of complexity for each rendezvous problem. The first case considers C-W equations, the second case considers multi-revolution Lambert's problem, and the third case considers a Non-Linear Programming problem to determine the cost of a rendezvous maneuver. Numerical examples demonstrate the proposed algorithm for cases when the targets are on a circular orbit.