Bi-Level Optimal Control Framework For Missed-Thrust-Design With First-Order Bounds On Maximum Missed-Thrust-Duration

TL;DR

This paper introduces a bi-level optimal control framework for spacecraft trajectory design that guarantees robustness against missed-thrust-events by providing explicit bounds on missed-thrust-duration, enabling rapid assessment and improved reliability.

Contribution

It develops a hierarchical control approach with a robustness certificate that bounds missed-thrust durations, integrating recovery analysis into trajectory optimization.

Findings

The robustness certificate provides an explicit upper bound on missed-thrust-duration.

The hierarchical formulation can be reformulated as a single-level problem with embedded optimality conditions.

Numerical experiments demonstrate the certificate's effectiveness in assessing model validity.

Abstract

In this paper, we present a bi-level optimal control framework for designing low-thrust spacecraft trajectories with robustness against missed-thrust-events. The upper-level (UL) problem generates a nominal trajectory assuming full control authority, while each lower-level (LL) problem computes the optimal recovery maneuver following a missed-thrust-event along the nominal solution. Under suitable regularity conditions ensuring uniqueness and smoothness of the LL response, the hierarchy admits a single-level reformulation by embedding the LL first-order optimality conditions within the UL constraints. We further establish a robustness certificate, which provides an upper bound on the maximum admissible missed-thrust-duration for which the structural assumptions remain valid for the LL problem. The bound depends explicitly on precomputable dynamical quantities along the nominal solution, enabling rapid evaluation over large ensembles without iterative solves. Numerical experiments show that while the certificate identifies when modeling assumptions are valid, it does not fully characterize recoverability after missed-thrust-events. A finite-horizon controllability-energy analysis is therefore used to interpret recovery beyond the theoretical bounds. Collectively, these results provide a deterministic, certifiable approach for incorporating robustness directly into trajectory design, replacing post-hoc margin allocation techniques with formal guarantees.