Design of aerogravity assist transfer trajectory for Ivar asteroid rendezvous mission

In recent years, a new concept in interplanetary exploration missions has been developed. This new technique, namely aerogravity assist, utilizes atmospheric flight in order to augment the gravitational bending of heliocentric velocity during a planetary encounter. In this paper, we analyze the maximum atmospheric turn angle and velocity increments for aerogravity assist, and present matching condition for designing aerogravity assist trajectory. This matching condition is the basic principle for designing and analyzing aerogravity assist trajectory. Then, on based of genetic algorithm and patched conic method, an approach of designing aerogravity assist trajectories for interplanetary mission is developed. Finally, taking rendezvous with an Ivar asteroid as an example, the preliminary scheme of transfer trajectory with gravity assist and aerogravity assist is design by using this approach. The calculation demonstrates that AGA technique not only decreases the launch energy and total velocity increments but also finds more exploring opportunities.