Powered Descent Trajectory Optimization of Chandrayaan-3 using Radau Collocation and Controllable Sets

2025/11/05 by Suraj Kumar, Aditya Rallapalli, Kumar, Suraj +5 · 1 citation
Engineering · #Spacecraft Dynamics and Control #Aerospace Engineering and Energy Systems #Aerospace Engineering and Control Systems

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2511.03594

Abstract

India achieved a significant milestone on August 23^rd 2023, becoming the fourth country to accomplish a soft landing on the Moon. This paper presents the powered descent trajectory design for the Chandrayaan-3 mission. The optimization framework is based on pseudospectral Radau collocation, and controllability-based waypoint refinement is employed to further enhance the robustness of the trajectory against state and control perturbations. Furthermore, the trade-off between fuel consumption and robustness is explicitly quantified, providing insights into the practical considerations of mission planning.

Citations

• Collocation at Gauss Points as a Discretization in Optimal Control

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