Spacecraft Trajectory Optimization

This is a long-overdue volume dedicated to space trajectory optimization. Interest in the subject has grown as space missions of increasing levels of sophistication complexity and scientific return hardly imaginable in the 1960s have been designed and flown. Although the basic tools of optimization theory remain an accepted canon there has been a revolution in the manner in which they are applied and in the development of numerical optimization. This volume purposely includes a variety of both analytical and numerical approaches to trajectory optimization. The choice of authors has been guided by the editors intention to assemble the most expert and active researchers in the various specialties presented. The authors were given considerable freedom to choose their subjects and although this may yield a somewhat eclectic volume it also yields chapters written with palpable enthusiasm and relevant to contemporary problems.