Magneto plasma sail formation reconfiguration around a heliocentric elliptic displaced orbit

This paper studies the feasibility of using the magneto plasma sail (MPS) as an exotic propellantless propulsion system for spacecraft formation reconfiguration around a heliocentric elliptic displaced orbit (HEDO). We assume that each spacecraft is equipped with superconducting current-carrying coil and predict the obtained thrust obtained due to magnetostatic interaction between the solar wind and the artificial magnetic cavity, the latter being generated by the spacecraft with a superconductive current-carrying coil. Since the interaction causes the solar wind flow to lose its momentum, the corresponding repulsive force is exerted on the coil to accelerate the magnetic sail spacecraft in the direction opposite to the Sun. Next, the mathematical model of relative motion for magneto plasma sail formation around the HEDO is established, and the performance requirements for maintaining an elliptic displaced orbit are given. A novel fixed-time nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode controller is developed to deal with external disturbances. Simulation results illustrate the superiority of the proposed control algorithm.