During an orbital maneuver of a spin-stabilized spacecraft, undesired transverse torques are present due to thruster misalignment and offset from the center of mass. These body-fixed torques cause the thrust vector to precess about a direction that is offset from the nominal. This oscillation of the thrust vector over the course of the maneuver decreases the final magnitude of the DeltaV while the average offset causes a pointing error. Previous work shows that inserting a short-coast phase into the maneuver can eliminate the pointing error. The behavior of the thrust axis is considered to find solutions for the coast phase timing that minimize the average oscillation of the thrust axis to maximize DeltaV, while retaining the property of eliminating the secular pointing error. The new maneuver scheme realizes a significant increase in efficiency over the previous solution, particularly if the oscillation of the thrust axis is large. References: 4
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