Solar Sail Trajectory Design for a Martian Moon Sample-return Mission

With a dedicated mission to the Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, set to launch soon, there is a growing interest in further exploring these moons using low-thrust propulsion. This paper investigates the trajectory design for a sample-return mission from Deimos using fuel-free solar sail propulsion technology, aiming to maximize operational time...

A Gravity Assist Mapping Based on Gaussian Process Regression

We develop a Gravity Assist Mapping to quantify the effects of a flyby in a two-dimensional circular restricted three-body situation based on Gaussian Process Regression (GPR). This work is inspired by the Keplerian Map and Flyby Map. The flyby is allowed to occur anywhere above 300 km altitude at the Earth in the system of Sun-(Earth+Moon)...

Time-Optimal Transfers Between Planar Solar-Sail Libration Point Orbits

This paper presents time-optimal transfer trajectories between planar solar-sail displaced libration point orbits around the $L_1$ and $L_2$ points of the Sun-Earth and Earth-Moon systems. Initial guesses for these transfers are generated as two-segment trajectories, with a fixed sail attitude along each segment. The position and velocity...

Controllability of solar-sail orbits in the Earth-Moon system

The propellantless nature of solar-sail propulsion allows researchers to design completely new sets of orbits unreachable or not-maintainable by means of conventional propulsion. The advantage of this somewhat new type of low-thrust propulsion system becomes more evident for long-duration missions where chemical or electrical rocket engines...

Connecting hyperbolic invariant manifolds at variations of the Poincaré section orientation: A numerical investigation into novel transfer solutions connecting collinear periodic libration point orbits through their associated manifold structures

The three-body problem (3BP) formulated by I. Newton has inspired many great mathematicians like L. Euler (1707-1783), J.L. Lagrange (1736-1813), K.G.J. Jacobi (1804-1851), W.R. Hamilton (1805-1865) and J.H. Poincaré (1854-1912) to develop mathematical studies, methods and theories in an attempt to solve this problem. Although these concepts...

On lunar collision orbits: New methodologies for Moon-to-Moon transfer design

Many interplanetary missions massively leverage the lunar gravitational pull in the so-called low-energy regime to converge to their aim, saving consistent amount of fuel. Among these, two future Japanese spacecraft are expected to repeatedly encounter the Moon along their trajectories to either facilitate the escape from the Earth–Moon system...