Multiple spacecraft transfers to Sun-Earth distant retrograde orbits for Asteroid detection missions

Heiligers, J., Hiddink, S., Noomen, R. and McInnes, C. R. (2014) Multiple spacecraft transfers to Sun-Earth distant retrograde orbits for Asteroid detection missions. In: International Astronautical Congress 2014 (IAC 2014), Toronto, Canada, 29 Sep - 3 Oct 2014,

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Abstract

Solar sailing has been proposed for a range of novel space applications, including hovering above the ecliptic for high-latitude observations of the Earth and monitoring the Sun from a sub-L1 position for space weather forecasting. These applications, and many others, are all defined in the Sun-Earth three-body problem, while little research has been conducted to investigate the potential of solar sailing in the Earth-Moon three-body problem. This paper therefore aims to find solar sail periodic orbits in the Earth-Moon three-body problem, in particular Lagrange point orbits. By introducing a solar sail acceleration to the Earth-Moon three-body problem, the system becomes non-autonomous and constraints on the orbital period need to be imposed. In this paper, the problem is solved as a two-point boundary value problem together with a continuation approach: starting from a natural Lagrange point orbit. the solar sail acceleration is gradually increased and the result for the previous sail performance is used as an initial guess for a slightly better sail performance. Two in-plane steering laws are considered for the sail, one where the attitude of the sail is fixed in the synodic reference frame (perpendicular to the Earth-Moon line) and one where the sail always faces the Sun. The results of the paper include novel families of solar sail Lyapunov and Halo orbits around the Earth-Moon L1 and L2 Lagrange points, respectively, for both solar sail steering laws. These orbits are double-revolution orbits that wind around or are off-set with respect to the natural Lagrange point orbit. Finally, the effect of an out-of-plane solar sail acceleration component and the Sun-sail configuration is investigated, giving rise to additional families of solar sail periodic orbits in the Earth-Moon three-body problem.

Item Type:Conference Proceedings
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:McInnes, Professor Colin
Authors: Heiligers, J., Hiddink, S., Noomen, R., and McInnes, C. R.
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Systems Power and Energy
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2014 The Authors
Publisher Policy:Reproduced with the permission of the authors
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