Ballistic Interplanetary Trajectory Optimization - SNOPT

Design and optimize patched-conic, ballistic interplanetary trajectories between any two celestial bodies of our solar system.

This submission is a MATLAB script called ipto_snopt that can be used to design and optimize “patched conic” ballistic interplanetary trajectories between any two planets of our solar system. It can also be used to find two-body trajectories between a planet and an asteroid or comet. A patched-conic trajectory ignores the gravitational effect of both the launch and arrivals planets on the heliocentric orbital transfer trajectory. This technique involves the solution of the heliocentric Lambert's problem. The ipto_snopt script also includes the option to include user-defined mission constraints such as departure energy, time-of-flight, and so forth during the trajectory optimization.

The ipto_snopt MATLAB script also performs a graphical primer vector analysis of the solution. This program feature displays the behavior of the primer vector magnitude and primer derivative magnitude as a function of mission elapsed time in days from departure. This script uses the SNOPT nonlinear programming (NLP) algorithm to solve this classic orbital mechanics problem. MATLAB versions of SNOPT for several computer platforms can be found at Professor Philip Gill’s web site which is located at http://scicomp.ucsd.edu/~peg/.

This MATLAB script reads a JPL planetary ephemerides in a machine-independent binary format (kernels) which are available from the JPL SPICE web site. These *.bsp ephemeris files are IEEE-Little Endian style of binary kernel. This is the binary form native to PC/Linux, PC/Windows and MAC/Intel machines. Ephemeris and other required data files, platform dependent versions of the MICE mex file and other functions are available at naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/toolkit_MATLAB.html. MICE is a MATLAB implementation of the JPL SPICE software system.

This submission includes a 64bit version of the MICE mex file for Windows.