Asteroid hopping in the main belt with a low-thrust spacecraft¶

THis plot is produced by the following code:

import pykep as pk
pk.examples.run_example6()

if a feasible solution is reached. Repeat several times in case unfeasible solutions are returned.

This example demonstrates the use of the mr_lt_nep class in the trajopt module to design a hopping mission between main belt asteroids. The class derives from pygmo problem.base and represents the optimization of a multiple randezvous mission of a low-thrust spacecraft. The initial guess is taken from one of the trajectory submitted by the ACT/ISAS team to the 7th edition of the global trajectory optimisation competition. In essence it tries to hop between four different asteroids of the main belt.

The code for this example can be studied here. Feel free to leave comments.

The study of the ACT GTOC7 trajectories can be found here:

Izzo, Dario, et al. “Designing complex interplanetary trajectories for the global trajectory optimization competitions.” Space Engineering. Springer International Publishing, 2016. 151-176. APA