A Heuristic Search Algorithm for Asteroid Tour Missions

TARGET GROUP: ASTEROIDS

OBJECTIVES

·        To develop an efficient and robust algorithmic framework for finding optimal trajectories of an asteroid tour mission with at least ten asteroid flybys, in accordance with ESA’s medium mission guidelines.

SUMMARY

Since the discovery of Ceres, asteroids have been of immense scientific interest and intrigue. They hold answers to many of the fundamental questions about the formation and evolution of the Solar System. Therefore, a mission surveying the asteroid belt with close encounter of carefully chosen asteroids would be of immense scientific benefit. The trajectory of such an asteroid tour mission needs to be designed such that asteroids of a wide range of compositions and sizes are encountered; all with an extremely limited ∆V budget.

This thesis presents a novel heuristic algorithm to optimize trajectories for an asteroid tour mission with close range flybys (≤ 1000 km). The core search algorithm efficiently decouples combinatorial (i.e. choosing the asteroids to flyby) and continuous optimization (i.e. optimizing critical maneuvers and events) of what is essentially a mixed integer programming problem. Additionally, different methods to generate a healthy initial population for the combinatorial optimization are presented.

REFERENCE

http://www.diva-portal.se/smash/get/diva2:1259156/FULLTEXT01.pdf