Position and attitude control of a spacecraft by sliding mode control

Future spacecraft such as the Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle or “Remover” which tries to capture and remove large space debris objects in orbit need to be able to perform large angle and complicated position maneuvers in space. The equation of motion of a rigid body that performs attitude and translational motion (six degrees of freedom motion) is a nonlinear equation. This paper applies sliding mode control that can handle a nonlinear system to the six degrees of freedom control for such a vehicle. Its feasibility is investigated through a numerical simulation of proximity flight around a tumbling target object