Towards a general framework for fast and feasible k-space trajectories for MRI based on projection methods

The design of feasible trajectories to traverse the k-space for sampling in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is important while considering ways to reduce the scan time. Over the recent years, non-Cartesian trajectories have been observed to result in benign artifacts and being less sensitive to motion. In this paper, we propose a generalized...

Trajectory Design for a Solar-Sail Mission to Asteroid 2016 HO3

This paper proposes the use of solar-sail technology currently under development at NASA Langley Research Center for a CubeSat rendezvous mission with asteroid 2016 HO3, a quasi-satellite of Earth. Time-optimal trajectories are sought for within a 2022–2023 launch window, starting from an assumed launcher ejection condition in the Earth-Moon...

Optimisation Strategies for Galilean Moon Tours: Low-Thrust Multiple Gravity-Assist Trajectory Design for GTOC6

Around 1610 Galileo Galilei made his discovery of the four large moons orbiting Jupiter which are referred to now as the Galilean moons. The moons Europa and Ganymede attract a significant amount of scientific interest due to potential present subsurface oceans. As consequence, the design of missions to go there and explore the moon system are...

Application of the Spherical Shaping Method to a Low-Thrust Multiple Asteroid Rendezvous Mission: Implementation, limitations and solutions

Since the development of the exponential sinusoid for low-thrust trajectory design by Petropoulos and Longuski [2004], more shape-based methods have emerged that ease up the work of a mission analyst. These methods are the ideal tool to generate a quick and almost complete overview of a large search space and are useful for producing first...

Interplanetary Trajectory Design using Dynamical Systems Theory

Instead of the two-body problem commonly used in interplanetary trajectory design, also three bodies can be considered: the satellite, a planet and the Sun. Knowing that planet and Sun orbit one another in almost circular orbits, and the mass of the satellite is negligible compared to the mass of these bodies, the model of the circular...

Transfer strategies to the L3 libration point of the Sun-Earth system

In this contribution, we investigate several trajectory design methods to transfer a spacecraft to the L3 point of the Sun-Earth Circular Restricted 3-Body Problem (CR3BP). Such a study aims at performing an investigation into an area that is so far little explored: the vicinity of L3 has never been the destination of a space mission, and in...