Orbital Relative Motion and Terminal Rendezvous

Jean Albert Kéchichian is a retired engineering specialist from The Aerospace Corporation. He has made lasting contributions in Astronautical Guidance and Astrodynamics over the past 25 years. His extensive involvement in NASA’s interplanetary and planetary missions include the design of the orbit sustenance maneuvering strategies of the TOPEX spacecraft, the design of the turn and orbit change maneuvers of the Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer Explorers (AMPTE) , direct support of the Pioneer Venus Orbiter mission operations, and the Galileo Probe trajectory reconstruction accuracy analysis.  His software has been used recently by The Aerospace Corporation to fly actual spacecraft to the GEO orbit using optimal low-thrust transfer trajectories.Dr. Kéchichian received Engineer’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Universite de Liege in Wallonie, Belgium in 1971, and his MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California atBerkeley in 1976. In 1977, he received his PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University. From 1979 to 1987, Dr. Kéchichian was a Maneuver and Orbit Determination Analyst at JPL. From 1987 to 1989 he worked as a Senior Engineering Specialist at Ford Aerospace. Dr. Kéchichian then worked as an Engineering Specialist at The Aerospace Corporation from 1989 until his retirement. Dr. Kéchichian has served a three-year term on the Astrodynamics Technical Committee, acted as session chairman for several Trajectory Optimization Sessions at various AIAA/AAS conferences, and served as a reviewer for the AIAA/AAS/IAF journals besides serving as an Associate Editor for the Journal of the Astronautical Sciences. His book, "Applied Nonsingular Astrodynamics," was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018.

• Chapter 1. The Second-Order Analytic Approximation to the Solution of the Euler-Hill Equations of Relative Motion.- Chapter 2. Analytic Solutions for the Perturbed Motion of a Spacecraft in Near-Circular Orbit, Under the Influence of the J2 and J3 Earth Zonal Harmonics, in Rotating and Inertial Cartesian Reference Frames.- Chapter 3. Analytic Solutions for the Perturbed Motion of a Spacecraft in Near-Circular Orbit, Under the Influence of the Luni-Solar Gravity, in Rotating and Inertial Cartesian Reference Frames.- Chapter 4. Effect of Luni-Solar Gravity Perturbations on a Near-Circular Orbit: Third-Body Orbit Eccentricity Considerations.- Chapter 5. Effect of Atmospheric Drag Perturbation on Circular Orbits: Atmosphere Rotation Considerations.- Chapter 6. Analytic Solution of Terminal Rendezvous in Near-Circular Orbit Around the Oblate Earth: The Computation of the Starting Guess for Iterations.- Chapter 7. Techniques of Accurate Analytic Terminal Rendezvous in Near-Circular Orbit.- Chapter 8. Coplanar Two-Impulse Rendezvous in General Elliptic Orbit with Drag.- Chapter 9. The Analysis of the Relative Motion in General Elliptic Orbit With Respect to a Dragging and Precessing Coordinate Frame.- Chapter 10. The Algorithm of the Two-Impulse Time-Fixed Noncoplanar Rendezvous with Drag and Oblateness Effects.- Chapter 11. The Analysis and Implementation of In-Plane Stationkeeping of Continuously Perturbed Walker Constellations.- Chapter 12. The Mathematical Models of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Artificial Satellite Analysis Program (ASAP)