Abstract
Maintaining missions in proximity of small bodies involves extensive orbit determination and ground station time due to the current ground-in-the-loop approach. The prospect of having multiple concurrent missions around different targets requires the development of concepts and capabilities for autonomous proximity operations. Developments in on-board navigation by landmark maps paved the way for autonomous guidance at asteroids. The missing elements for achieving this goal are gravity models, simple enough to be easily used by the spacecraft to steer itself around the asteroid, and guidance laws that rely on such inherently simple models. In this research, we identify a class of models that can represent some characteristics of the dynamical environment around small bodies with sufficient accuracy to enable autonomous guidance. We found that sets of three point masses are suitable to represent the rotational equilibrium points generated by the balance of gravity and centrifugal acceleration in the body-fixed frame. The equilibrium point at the lowest Jacobi energy can be viewed as the energy-gateway to the surface. Information of the location and energy of this point can then be used by a control law to comply with a condition of stability against impact for orbital trajectories. In this thesis, we show an optimisation process for the derivation of three-point mass models from higher order ones and compare the profile of the Zero-Velocity curves between the two models. We define an autonomous guidance law for achieving body fixed hovering in proximity of the asteroid while ensuring that no impact will occur with the small body during the manoeuvre. Finally, we discuss the performance of this approach by comparing it with another autonomous guidance law present in literature and we suggest possible future developments.