Station Keeping of Satellites in a Perturbed Areostationary Mars Orbit using Model Predictive Control
A model predictive control (MPC) station keeping policy is applied to a point mass spacecraft orbiting Mars in an areostationary orbit. A high-fidelity orbital model is presented, taking into account the significant orbital perturbations caused by Mars' non-Keplerian gravitational potential; gravitational forces due to the presence of the Sun, Phobos, and Deimos; and solar radiation pressure acting on the satellite. An MPC policy is implemented with the control objective of minimizing fuel consumption over an entire Earth year while maintaining the satellite within a prescribed station keeping window. Numerical simulation results at varying longitudes demonstrate the ability for MPC to meet the defined control objectives and improve upon the fuel consumption of other station keeping methods in the literature. This study provides a benchmark for the fuel required to perform areostationary Mars orbit station keeping, which aims to support future interplanetary telecommunication objectives.