Forming and keeping fast fly-around under constant thrust

A new switching control algorithm under constant thrust is designed for the chaser fast flying around the target spacecraft along a specified fly-around trajectory. The switching control laws are obtained based on the acceleration sequences and the on time of thrusters which can be computed by the time series analysis method. The perturbations and fuel consumptions are addressed during the computation of the on time of thrusters. Furthermore, the relative position parameters of the target spacecraft are obtained by using the vision measurement and the target fly-around positions are calculated through the isochronous interpolation method. The change of the relative position and the relative velocity of the chaser during the constant thrust fast fly-around are presented through simulation example. It is proved that, with the switching control laws, the chaser will fast fly around the target spacecraft along the specified fly-around trajectory.