Low-Thrust Many-Revolution Trajectory Design Under Operational Uncertainties for DESTINY+ Mission

TL;DR

The paper addresses robust design of low-thrust, many-revolution trajectories from Earth to a lunar transfer under operational uncertainties. It employs Hybrid Differential Dynamic Programming with a Sundman transformation to optimize the spiral orbit-raising phase and shift the time domain to an orbital angle domain, improving convergence for long-horizon, multi-revolution paths. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that a closed-loop, angular-domain HDDP feedback controller reliably guides most perturbed trajectories to the Moon, supporting autonomous flight operations. This work provides a practical framework for robustness assessment and autonomy in DESTINY+–style deep-space missions using low-thrust propulsion.

Abstract

DESTINY+ is a planned JAXA medium-class Epsilon mission from Earth to deep space using a low-thrust, many-revolution orbit. Such a trajectory design is a challenging problem not only for trajectory design but also for flight operations, and in particular, it is essential to evaluate the impact of operational uncertainties to ensure mission success. In this study, we design the low-thrust trajectory from Earth orbit to a lunar transfer orbit by differential dynamic programming using the Sundman transformation. The results of Monte Carlo simulations with operational uncertainties confirm that the spacecraft can be successfully guided to the lunar transfer orbit by using the feedback control law of differential dynamic programming in the angular domain.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: Baseline near-Earth trajectory of DESTINY$^+$ in the Earth-centered ECLIPJ2000 inertial frame.
• Figure 2: Time of Flight (TOF) versus propellant consumption after leaving the radiation belt.
• Figure 3: Nominal optimized trajectories (blue line represents the nominal trajectory, and red line shows the nominal thrusting arc).
• Figure 4: Perturbed trajectories in Monte Carlo simulation (50 trajectories, where each gray line indicates a sample trajectory, blue line represents a representative trajectory, and red line shows the representative thrusting arc).