LAUSR

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose a new fuel-balanced formation keeping reference trajectories planning method based on selecting the virtual reference center(VRC) in a fuel-balanced sense in terms of relative eccentricity and inclination vectors (E/I vectors). Design/methodology/approach By using the geometrical intuitive relative E/I vectors theory, the fuel-balanced VRC selection problem is reformulated as the geometrical problem to find the optimal point to equalize the distances between the VRC and the points determined by the relative E/I vectors of satellites in relative E/I vectors plane, which is solved by nonlinear programming method. Findings Numerical simulations demonstrate that the new proposed fuel-balanced formation keeping strategy is valid, and the new method achieves better fuel-balanced performance than the traditional method, which keeps formation with respect to geometrical formation center. Research limitations/implications The new fuel-balanced formation keeping reference trajectories planning method is valid for formation flying mission whose member satellite is in circular or near circular orbit in J2 perturbed orbit environment. Practical implications The new fuel-balanced formation keeping reference trajectories planning method can be used to solve formation flying keeping problem, which involves multiple satellites in the formation. Originality/value The fuel-balanced reference trajectories planning problem is reformulated as a geometrical problem, which can provide insightful way to understand the dynamic nature of the fuel-balanced reference trajectories planning issue.