Formation Keeping Control For Simultaneous Deorbit Using Laser Ablation

Laser ablation is a vital technology for contactless active debris removal, where a service satellite with a laser system irradiates laser pulses to a target satellite to generate the ablation force for deorbiting. The deorbiting force decelerates the target, and the service satellite needs to maintain its relative position and keep irradiating. In other words, both the service satellite and the target are supposed to be deorbited simultaneously, where both satellites have accelerations. The difficulty of simultaneous deorbiting stems from the relative motion between the service satellite and the target in powered flight because conventional formation flying missions assume that only a service satellite maneuvers. This paper derives the relative equations of motion between the service satellite and the target in powered flight. A control law for the simultaneous deorbit is proposed, which determines the timing and direction of the laser ablation and the electrical thrust so that the formation periodically returns to the desired formation. Numerical simulations are performed for two test cases to verify the control law under the uncertainties of thrust magnitude and orbital perturbation.