In the October issue of Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics (vol. 47 #10):
Fodde, I. Feng, J. Vasile, M. et al. Design of Robust Ballistic Landings on the Secondary of a Bina… p. 2041 1.G007786
Yang, H. Hu, J. Li, s. et al. Reinforcement-Learning Based Robust Guidance for Asteroid Approac… p. 2058 1.G008085
Landing on asteroids is, in general, low-stakes. “Landing,” due to the microgravity, is more like docking, and there just isn’t much of a crash if you mess up. But what if the asteroid is one member of a binary… and the lesser one? The complex gravitational field requires some guidance, control, and dynamics, wouldn’t it?
And that’s the terminal descent. Some of these small bodies are, well, small bodies, and dim from a distance. A second distance is the Earth-probe-Earth roundtrip. The roundtrip light time may mean active commanding of a mission by ground operations is simply, physically, impossible. Algorithms and routines are needed- some amount of ‘smarts’ on the vehicle. Even if the mission is ‘just’ a flyby, we would like close flybys, not long misses. The approach phase of a mission also warrants some guidance, control, and dynamics, eh?