Landing Trajectory Design Using Invariant Manifolds of Quasi Satellite Orbits: A Phobos Case Study

Quasi-satellite orbits (QSOs) are orbits around the smaller primary in three-body systems. The MMX mission (developed by JAXA, to be launched in 2024) will use QSOs to orbit Phobos, before landing on its surface. This work studies the feasibility of using the invariant manifolds of three-dimensional QSOs for designing landing trajectories, using...

Linear stability and bifurcations of periodic Lagrange orbits in the Elliptic Restricted 3-Body Problem: An investigation at L1/L2 in the Earth-Moon system

The Three Body Problem (3BP) has been one of the main celestial mechanics problems in the past few centuries, for a long time studied by both engineers and mathematicians. Its practical purpose is to describe the motion of three particles only under their mutual gravitational interaction, thus it actually represents a ‘model’ of the real...