Coupled roto-translational motion of the heliogyro applied to Earth-Mars cyclers

Solar sailing is a flight-proven low-thrust propulsion technology with strong potential for innovative scientific missions. The heliogyro is promising sailcraft design that utilizes a set of long slender blades which are deployed and flattened by spin-induced tension and whose orientations can be individually controlled. The main advantages of...

Optimal Aeroassisted Maneuvers for Orbital Transfer

Orbital plane changes require a considerable amount of propellant to be completed if the traditional fully propulsive maneuver is used. The cost associated with this type of maneuvers is one of its major drawbacks, and performing an inclination change in orbit would require a large part of the total mass budget of the mission. Moreover,...

Co-orbital motion and its application to JAXA's MMX mission

In the framework of JAXA's MMX mission to explore the Martian moon of Phobos, an analysis of the stability of three-dimensional quasi-satellite orbits in the Mars-Phobos circular restricted three-body problem was conducted. For this analysis, notions of co-orbital motion, interpreted as the slow motion of the guiding center of the trajectory...