Final Proximity Space Systems

Rendezvous and proximity operations

Optimisation-based
guidance and control at
Final Proximity.

Close-proximity operations in orbit, and autonomous lunar descent.

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Overview

Final Proximity Space Systems develops guidance, navigation and control software for close-proximity operations in orbit: approach, inspection, capture and servicing of another spacecraft, and autonomous lunar descent.

The methods are model predictive control, convex and mixed-integer optimisation, reachability analysis, and hardware-in-the-loop simulations and tests, in real time. The common requirement is that constraints hold under uncertainty, not only at a nominal point.

Capabilities

TimeSequence eventStatus

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00:04:00

Event 01

Proximity Operations

GO

Terminal approach to tumbling and uncooperative targets. Highly constrained. Reachability-based safe-start regions, rotating line-of-sight corridors, and plume-safe manoeuvring under keep-out constraints, closing the loop on monocular vision-based relative pose. Robust model predictive control and convex optimization in real time. A chaser spacecraft on terminal approach to a tumbling, uncooperative target. The keep-out zone, the line-of-sight corridor and the safe-start region at the corridor mouth are all fixed in the target body and sweep rigidly with it as it tumbles, while the chaser tracks the swinging corridor aperture with a visible lag before converging onto the corridor axis and closing on the docking port. chaser safe-start region corridor sweep rotating LOS corridor keep-out zone tumbling target V-bar R-bar

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00:03:15

Event 02

Space Defence

GO

Operations where the other object does not cooperate and may manoeuvre. Close inspection of uncooperative or tumbling objects, and chase-evade, where reachable-set and convex-game methods certify whether capture, or escape, is achievable under bounded control authority. A pursuer and a non-cooperative, manoeuvring evader in orbit, each with a reachable set that grows with time, and the capture set where the two reachable sets intersect. capture is certified when the pursuer set contains the evader set pursuer pursuer reachable set evader evader reachable set capture set t1 t2 V-bar R-bar

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00:02:20

Event 03

Multi-Rendezvous Trajectory Optimisation

GO

Sequencing and transfer design for multi-target servicing and debris missions. Mixed-integer optimisation fixes the visit order and safety structure; convex optimisation solves the trajectories, exploiting J2 drift where it pays. A servicer visiting four targets in turn, where every target orbital plane regresses under J2 at its own rate so that the planes fan apart during the cycle, each target is rigidly attached to the plane it rides, and each transfer is aimed at a predicted intercept ahead of the target rather than at where the target is when the hop begins, with the servicer waiting at each target while the planes keep drifting and the geometry improves. 1 2 3 4 orbital planes drift at different J2 rates servicer waits while the planes drift each hop aims at the predicted intercept node drift earth servicer depot visit order 1 to 4

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00:01:05

Event 04

Robust GNC for Flexible and Sloshing Spacecraft

STANDBY

Structural modes and propellant slosh augmented directly into the relative-motion model, with tube MPC that stays feasible under uncertain modal frequency, damping and fill fraction. A spacecraft whose flexible solar array oscillates in its first cantilever bending mode about a faint undeflected outline, while propellant sloshes in a partly filled tank so that the free surface tilts and runs up each wall in turn and a pendulum slosh model swings normal to it, and a robust tube encloses the nominal trajectory with a sample true state drifting between the tube walls. flexible mode undeflected propellant tank slosh pendulum free surface fill fraction uncertain frequency, damping and fill robust tube nominal trajectory possible states

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Event 05

Lunar Descent and Navigation

STANDBY

Autonomous powered-descent guidance by successive convexification, validated against a VTVL test vehicle, and digital-twin orbit prediction that assimilates model error for lunar navigation. An autonomous powered descent to the lunar surface computed by successive convexification, with a braking phase, an approach phase, thrust vectors that shorten as the vehicle slows, and a glide-slope cone about the landing site. thrust vector braking phase approach phase glide-slope constraint landing site lunar surface

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