Low Energy Lunar Trajectory Design

Based on years of research conducted at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Low-Energy Lunar Trajectory Design provides high-level information to mission managers and detailed information to mission designers about low-energy transfers between Earth and the moon. The book answers high-level questions about the availability and performance of such transfers in any given month and year. Low-energy lunar transfers are compared with various other types of transfers, and placed within the context of historical missions. Using this book, designers may reconstruct any transfer described therein, as well as design similar transfers with particular design parameters. An Appendix, “Locating the Lagrange Points,” and a useful list of terms and constants completes this technical reference. Surveys thousands of possible trajectories that may be used to transfer spacecraft between Earth and the moon, including transfers to lunar libration orbits, low lunar orbits, and the lunar surface Provides information about the methods, models, and tools used to design low-energy lunar transfers Includes discussion about the variations of these transfers from one month to the next, and the important operational aspects of implementing a low-energy lunar transfer Additional discussions address navigation, station-keeping, and spacecraft systems issues

The book focuses on the orbital dynamics and mission trajectory (transfer or target trajectory) design of low-energy flight in the context of modern astrodynamics. It investigates various topics that either offer new methods for solving classical problems or address emerging problems that have yet to be studied, including low-thrust transfer trajectory design using the virtual gravity field method; transfer in the three-body system using invariant manifolds; formation flying under space-borne artificial magnetic fields; and the orbital dynamics of highly irregular asteroids. It also features an extensive study of the orbital dynamics in the vicinity of contact binary asteroids, including the 1:1 ground-track resonance, the equilibrium points and their stability, and the third-order analytical solution of orbital motion in the vicinity of the non-collinear equilibrium point. Given its breadth of coverage, the book offers a valuable reference guide for all engineers and researchers interested in the potential applications of low-energy space missions.

This book considers global solutions to the restricted three-body problem from a geometric point of view. The authors seek dynamical channels in the phase space which wind around the planets and moons and naturally connect them. These low energy passageways could slash the amount of fuel spacecraft need to explore and develop our solar system. In order to effectively exploit these passageways, the book addresses the global transport. It goes beyond the traditional scope of libration point mission design, developing tools for the design of trajectories which take full advantage of natural three or more body dynamics, thereby saving precious fuel and gaining flexibility in mission planning. This is the key for the development of some NASA mission trajectories, such as low energy libration point orbit missions (e.g., the sample return Genesis Discovery Mission), low energy lunar missions and low energy tours of outer planet moon systems, such as a mission to tour and explore in detail the icy moons of Jupiter. This book can serve as a valuable resource for graduate students and advanced undergraduates in applied mathematics and aerospace engineering, as well as a manual for practitioners who work on libration point and deep space missions in industry and at government laboratories. the authors include a wealth of background material, but also bring the reader up to a portion of the research frontier.

This is a long-overdue volume dedicated to space trajectory optimization. Interest in the subject has grown, as space missions of increasing levels of sophistication, complexity, and scientific return - hardly imaginable in the 1960s - have been designed and flown. Although the basic tools of optimization theory remain an accepted canon, there has been a revolution in the manner in which they are applied and in the development of numerical optimization. This volume purposely includes a variety of both analytical and numerical approaches to trajectory optimization. The choice of authors has been guided by the editor's intention to assemble the most expert and active researchers in the various specialities presented. The authors were given considerable freedom to choose their subjects, and although this may yield a somewhat eclectic volume, it also yields chapters written with palpable enthusiasm and relevance to contemporary problems.

This book describes a revolutionary new approach to determining low energy routes for spacecraft and comets by exploiting regions in space where motion is very sensitive (or chaotic). It also represents an ideal introductory text to celestial mechanics, dynamical systems, and dynamical astronomy. Bringing together wide-ranging research by others with his own original work, much of it new or previously unpublished, Edward Belbruno argues that regions supporting chaotic motions, termed weak stability boundaries, can be estimated. Although controversial until quite recently, this method was in fact first applied in 1991, when Belbruno used a new route developed from this theory to get a stray Japanese satellite back on course to the moon. This application provided a major verification of his theory, representing the first application of chaos to space travel. Since that time, the theory has been used in other space missions, and NASA is implementing new applications under Belbruno's direction. The use of invariant manifolds to find low energy orbits is another method here addressed. Recent work on estimating weak stability boundaries and related regions has also given mathematical insight into chaotic motion in the three-body problem. Belbruno further considers different capture and escape mechanisms, and resonance transitions. Providing a rigorous theoretical framework that incorporates both recent developments such as Aubrey-Mather theory and established fundamentals like Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser theory, this book represents an indispensable resource for graduate students and researchers in the disciplines concerned as well as practitioners in fields such as aerospace engineering.

The conventional method to design an interplanetary trajectory is by using patched conic technique in two-body problem. It mainly consists of two impulses namely, trans-planetary injection (VTPI) to send the spacecraft from an Earth Parking Orbit (EPO) into heliocentric trajectory towards the destination planet, and Planetary Orbit Insertion (VPOI) to put the spacecraft from a heliocentric trajectory to an orbit around the destination planet. Low-energy transfers are non-conventional methods for interplanetary transfers, and are associated with low-energy with respect to the given major body. Weak Stability Boundary (WSB) transfers, belong to the category of low-energy transfers which take advantage of WSB regions where gravitational attractions of the influencing bodies tend to balance each other, to reduce VPOI (to almost zero in case of lunar transfers). The benefits of using WSB transfer over the conventional transfers are less fuel requirement, more flexibility in arrival orbits, extended launch periods and relaxed operational timeline (Parker and Anderson, 2013). WSB transfer has a major disadvantage of long flight duration. WSB transfer to Moon was first discovered by Belbruno for the Lunar Get-a-Way Special (LGAS) spacecraft which was proposed to use electric propulsion to reach Moon and search for water at its polar regions (Belbruno, 1987). The spacecrafts thrusters were too weak to perform a conventional capture manoeuvre at Moon, so Belbruno proposed an alternative trajectory which would slowly spiral out from Earth, coast to the WSB region so that the spacecraft would be captured into an orbit around Moon. Then it would use its thrusters to spiral down to the final orbit at Moon. WSB is described by Belbruno and Miller (1993) as "a generalization of Lagrange points and a complicated region surrounding the Moon"; Belbruno (2004) as "a region in phase space supporting a special type of chaotic motion for special choices of elliptic initial conditions with respect to m2"; Yagasaki (2004) as "a transition region between the gravitational capture and escape from the Moon in the phase space".

When a leaf falls on a windy day, it drifts and tumbles, tossed every which way on the breeze. This is chaos in action. In Fly Me to the Moon, Edward Belbruno shows how to harness the same principle for low-fuel space travel--or, as he puts it, "surfing the gravitational field." Belbruno devised one of the most exciting concepts now being used in space flight, that of swinging through the cosmos on the subtle fluctuations of the planets' gravitational pulls. His idea was met with skepticism until 1991, when he used it to get a stray Japanese satellite back on course to the Moon. The successful rescue represented the first application of chaos to space travel and ushered in an emerging new field. Part memoir, part scientific adventure story, Fly Me to the Moon gives a gripping insider's account of that mission and of Belbruno's personal struggles with the science establishment. Along the way, Belbruno introduces readers to recent breathtaking advances in American space exploration. He discusses ways to capture and redirect asteroids; presents new research on the origin of the Moon; weighs in on discoveries like 2003 UB313 (now named Eris), a dwarf planet detected in the far outer reaches of our solar system--and much more. Grounded in Belbruno's own rigorous theoretical research but written for a general audience, Fly Me to the Moon is for anybody who has ever felt moved by the spirit of discovery.

Descripción del editor: "Theory of Orbits: The Restricted Problem of Three Bodies is a 10-chapter text that covers the significance of the restricted problem of three bodies in analytical dynamics, celestial mechanics, and space dynamics. The introductory part looks into the use of three essentially different approaches to dynamics, namely, the qualitative, the quantitative, and the formalistic. The opening chapters consider the formulation of equations of motion in inertial and in rotating coordinate systems, as well as the reductions of the problem of three bodies and the corresponding streamline analogies. These topics are followed by discussions on the regularization and writing of equations of motion in a singularity-free systems; the principal qualitative aspect of the restricted problem of the curves of zero velocity; and the motion and nonlinear stability in the neighborhood of libration points. This text further explores the principles of Hamiltonian dynamics and its application to the restricted problem in the extended phase space. A chapter treats the problem of two bodies in a rotating coordinate system and treats periodic orbits in the restricted problem. Another chapter focuses on the comparison of the lunar and interplanetary orbits in the Soviet and American literature. The concluding chapter is devoted to modifications of the restricted problem, such as the elliptic, three-dimensional, and Hill's problem. This book is an invaluable source for astronomers, engineers, and mathematicians ". Academic Press.