Autonomous rendezvous in elliptical orbits

Abstract An important feature of the autonomous terminal rendezvous of spacecraft in an elliptical orbit is a periodic motion (limit cycle) in the system variables. Unstable limit cycle involves an instability of the system. This paper addresses a mathematical model of the system, a range rate control algorithm, a numerical iterative method for computing the limit cycle, its stability and domain of attraction, the boundary of stability on the parameters’ plane, and the computer simulation results.