Abstract
— The problem of an optimal spatial turn on a fixed time interval is considered for a quaternion-based model of a spacecraft. It is required to transfer a spacecraft from the specified initial state to the desired final position, provided that the control is bounded. As an example, cases are considered, when the objective functional has a sense of minimizing the fuel consumption or expenses for control. The desired control is found using Pontryagin’s maximum principle and the quasilinearization technique. The method of separation of phase and conjugate variables is proposed to solve the resulting two-point boundary-value problem (TPBVP). The use of an analytical approach for solving the TPBVP allows one to increase the calculation accuracy and to reduce computation time.