scenarioOrbitManeuverTH
Overview
This scenario simulates a single Hohmann Transfer about Earth. The spacecraft utilizes a Velocity Pointing frame to align the thrusters with the velocity direction throughout the flight.
Compared to scenarioOrbitManeuver and scenarioHohmann which use impulsive orbit maneuvers to perform \(\Delta v\)’s this scenario uses the Module: thrusterStateEffector module to perform a finite time burn. Two thrusters with different thrust values are used to perform the GTO burn and circularization burn.
To calculate the duration of each finite burn an assumption of constant mass is used allowing the duration to be calculated using:
where \(a_{Thrust}\) is the acceleration due to thrust and is calculated using:
\[a_{Thrust} = \frac{F_{thrust}}{M_{spacecraft}}\]
where \(F_{thrust}\) is the thrust force and \(M_{spacecraft}\) is the spacecraft mass.
The required \(\Delta v\) for each burn is found using the same manner as discussed in scenarioHohmann.
To show that the Module: thrusterStateEffector thruster module works with variable time step integrators, this scenario uses an RKF45 integrator instead of the usual RK4.
The script is found in the folder basilisk/examples and executed by using:
python3 scenarioOrbitManeuverTH.py
Illustration of Simulation Results
show_plots = True
