Low-energy transfers from GTO to lunar Halo orbits: rideshare options and sensitivities

Low-energy transfers from GTO to lunar Halo orbits: rideshare options and sensitivities

Pascarella, Alex (TU Delft Aerospace Engineering)

Noomen, R. (mentor)
Wilson, R. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Aerospace Engineering

JPL Visiting Student Research Program

2020-11-04

In this research project, the design of a smallsat mission to a Halo orbit around the Earth-Moon second libration point (EML-2) using a rideshare launch opportunity to an inclined geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) was investigated.
The design leverages classical results from Dynamical Systems Theory (DST) to determine low-energy transfers from Earth to the libration orbit, and a new design methodology was developed to generate a bridge trajectory that connects the initial GTO to the low-energy transfer trajectory. The results obtained during the research prove the validity of the mission design, and show the feasibility of using a rideshare launch opportunity to achieve the mission goals.

Orbit Design
Low-energy Transfers
Invariant Manifold Theory
Dynamical Systems Theory
Ridesharing
Earth-Moon System
GTO
Smallsats

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:cfd66067-2d95-499d-abbc-55566c7bcabd

Student theses

master thesis

© 2020 Alex Pascarella