Aerogravity assists: Hypersonic maneuvering to improve planetary gravity assists

Interplanetary missions use gravitational slingshots around planetary bodies to adjust their heliocentric velocity or inclination for quite some time. The momentum exchange that can be achieved during a so-called gravity assist is limited by the mass of the planetary body. To overcome this limitation, an aerogravity assist was proposed, a...

Earth frozen orbits: Design, injection and stability

A frozen orbit is an orbit chosen such that the effect of perturbations on (a combination of) the mean orbital elements is minimized. The concept first appeared in literature in 1978, and was applied that same year to the Seasat mission. This altimetry mission featured strict requirements on the accuracy of the altitude of the satellite above...