Design of the control system for a powered landing maneuver of a rocket

Sammanfattning: The powered soft landing of a spacecraft represents a maneuver with high interest, withsome private launcher companies – SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Factory Augsburg, etc. - showinginterest in implementing it as a solution for their launchers, and several national agenciesusing it for the exploration of celestial bodies where it may be the only option. This thesispresents the work done in the theoretical development of a possible control algorithm for thepower landing maneuver of a rocket on Earth’s surface. The first step is the definition of the landingmaneuver based on literature study. This includes the identification of the different phasesof the flight, the selection of control variables, and the establishment of the initial conditionsfor the simulation and the working assumptions. Following this work, the three-dimensionalequations of motion for a rocket-like body are determined and simulated in the absence of anycontrol signal. Two aspects need to be analyzed in the powered landing maneuver: attitudeand velocity control. The second step consists in the implementation of the two respectivealgorithms, which are then applied to the equations system. The newly controlled system isagain simulated, and the results are compared with the ones obtained in the absence of thecontrol. The simulations are expected to provide the position, attitude, and velocity profilesof the rocket both in free fall and with a controlled power-landing. Consequently, the controlsystem is expected to guarantee safe recovery of the spacecraft given different initial conditions.