Analytical Initialization of a Continuation-Based Indirect Method for Optimal Control of Endo-Atmospheric Launch Vehicle Systems

In this paper, we propose a strategy to solve endo-atmospheric launch vehicle optimal control problems using indirect methods. More specifically, we combine shooting methods with an adequate continuation algorithm, taking advantage of the knowledge of an analytical solution of a simpler problem. This procedure is resumed in two main steps. We first simplify the physical dynamics to obtain an analytical guidance law which is used as initial guess for a shooting method. Then, a continuation procedure makes the problem converge to the complete dynamics leading to the optimal solution of the original system. Numerical results are presented.