Long-term accompanying flight control of satellites with low fuel consumption

It is very important to design the long-term relative orbital controller with low fuel consumption for the satellite accompanying by the space target with high value. The relative kinematic equations for the satellites with relative motion are obtained by the calculus of variation, based on which the equations of the drift character are derived for the satellite with the circular reference orbit, and the equations describe an ellipse with the center variable. The drifting character is studied, and the drifting parabola controller is designed in terms of the estimation of the relative drifting acceleration along the direction of velocity. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the method.