New Spacecraft Tech Could Save Billions in Mars Missions

A new tube model-predictive-control guidance law for spacecraft rendezvous cuts propellant use by 29% on circular target orbits and 40% on eccentric ones, docking within the 0.20 m capture requirement on essentially every Monte Carlo draw. The controller derives the range at which a prediction model's linearisation error exceeds the disturbance bound it was built to reject, using that as a design rule before simulation, and on a Mars Sample Return approach it disqualifies the homing phase and restores the guarantee by re-posing that phase in relative orbital elements. The savings come with longer time of flight and more computation, and the paper does not claim recursive feasibility or asymptotic stability.