Optimal Impulsive Orbital Transfer - OTB version

MATLAB script for the solution of the one and two impulse orbital transfer between two Earth orbits.

This submission is a MATLAB script called oota_otb that can be used to determine optimum one and two impulse orbital transfers between non-coplanar circular and elliptical orbits. The method is general and the initial and final orbits need not be coapsidal.

The algorithm implemented in this script is based on the classic orbit transfer and rendezvous work of Gary McCue, Gentry Lee and David Bender, described in “Numerical Investigation of Minimum Impulse Orbital Transfer”, AIAA Journal, 3, 2328-2334 (1963); and “An Analysis of Two-Impulse Orbital Transfer”, AIAA Journal, 2, 1767-1773 (1964).

The numerical solution of this classic astrodynamics problem involves a combination of one-dimensional, derivative-free root-finding using Richard Brent’s method and multi-dimensional unconstrained minimization using the MATLAB fminsearch algorithm.

For a two-impulse transfer, this script also provides a graphical display of the primer vector characteristics. This information can be used to verify the optimality of the transfer.