Automated Trajectory Optimizer for Solar Sailing (ATOSS)

The problem of finding an optimal solar-sail trajectory must be solved by means of numerical methods, since no analytical, closed-form solutions exist. A new tool named ATOSS (Automated Trajectory Optimizer for Solar Sailing) has been developed for optimizing multi-phase solar-sail trajectories. A shape-based method for solar sailing and a two-stage approach for the optimization are the keys to the success of ATOSS, which operates with minimum inputs required to the user. Once the initial guess is generated by means of the shape-based method, the above mentioned two-stage approach works as follows. First, a solution to the optimal control problem at hand is sought; subsequently, the boundaries on the times are modified so that a better solution, in terms of total mission duration, is searched. Several numerical test cases are presented to demonstrate ATOSS' ability to automatically find optimal solar-sail trajectories for single- and multi-phase optimization problems. Moreover, the shape-based method for solar sailing has been validated as a viable method to produce initial guess solutions for a direct optimization algorithm.