Abstract: We aim at examining the current status of advanced control methods in spacecrafts from an engineer’s perspective. Instead of reviewing all the fancy theoretical results in advanced control for aerospace vehicles, the focus is on the advanced control methods that have been practically applied to spacecrafts during flight tests, or have been tested in real time on ground facilities and general testbeds/simulators built with actual flight data. The aim is to provide engineers with all the possible control laws that are readily available rather than those that are tested only in the laboratory at the moment. It turns out that despite the blooming developments of modern control theories, most of them have various limitations, which stop them from being practically applied to spacecrafts. There are a limited number of spacecrafts that are controlled by advanced control methods, among which H₂/H_∞ robust control is the most popular method to deal with flexible structures, adaptive control is commonly used to deal with model/parameter uncertainty, and the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) is the most frequently used method in case of optimal control. It is hoped that this review paper will enlighten aerospace engineers who hold an open mind about advanced control methods, as well as scholars who are enthusiastic about engineering-oriented problems.

Key words: Spacecraft control, Robust control, Adaptive control, Optimal control

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