Abstract:

We develop a model predictive control (MPC) policy for station keeping on a Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO). The proposed policy achieves full-state tracking of a reference NRHO via a multiple-maneuver control horizon, each spaced one revolution apart to abide by typical mission operation requirements. We prove that the proposed policy is recursively feasible, and perform numerical evaluation in an output-feedback setting by incorporating a navigation filter and realistic operational uncertainties, where the proposed MPC is compared against the state-of-the-art station-keeping algorithm adopted for the Gateway. Our approach successfully maintains the spacecraft in the vicinity of the reference NRHO at a similar cumulative cost as existing station keeping methods without encountering phase deviation issues, a common drawback of existing methods with one maneuver per revolution.