Trajectory control with continuous thrust applied to a rendezvous maneuver

A rendezvous mission can be divided into the following phases: launch, phasing, far range rendezvous, close range rendezvous and mating (docking or berthing). This paper aims to present a close range rendezvous with closed loop controlled straight line trajectory. The approaching is executed on V-bar axis. A PID controller and continuous thrust are used to eliminate the residual errors in the trajectory. A comparative study about the linear and nonlinear dynamics is performed and the results showed that the linear equations become inaccurate insofar as the chaser moves away from the target.