Design and Applications of Solar Sail Periodic Orbits in the Non-Autonomous Earth-Moon System

Design and Applications of Solar Sail Periodic Orbits in the Non-Autonomous Earth-Moon System

Heiligers, M.J. (TU Delft Astrodynamics & Space Missions; University of Strathclyde)
Macdonald, Malcolm (University of Strathclyde)
Parker, Jeffrey S. (University of Colorado)

Turner, J.D. (editor)
Wawrzyniak, G.G. (editor)
Cerven, W.T. (editor)
Majji, M. (editor)

2015

Solar sailing has great potential for a range of high-energy and long duration mis-sions in the Sun-Earth system. This paper extends this potential to the non-autonomous Earth-Moon system through the use of a differential correction scheme, and by selecting suitable in-plane and out-of-plane sail steering laws to develop new families of solar sail libration point orbits that are periodic with the Sun’s motion around the Earth-Moon system. New orbits include those that bifur-cate from the natural Lyapunov, halo and eight-shaped orbit families at the first and second Lagrange points. The potential of these orbits is demonstrated by con-sidering the performance of a subset of orbits for high-latitude Earth observations, lunar far-side communications, and lunar South Pole coverage.

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:2e52eb9a-cacd-4eb0-b5f2-c45c9546c744

978-087703629-6

AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Specialist Conference, Vail, Colorado, USA, 156

AAS/AIAA astrodynamics specialist conference, 2015-08-09 → 2015-08-13, Springfield, Vail, United States

Institutional Repository

conference paper

© 2015 M.J. Heiligers, Malcolm Macdonald, Jeffrey S. Parker