Minimum Fuel Round Trip from a $$L_2$$ L 2 Earth-Moon Halo Orbit to Asteroid 2006 RH $$_{120}$$ 120

Indirect methods for fuel-minimal rendezvous with a large population of temporarily captured orbiters

“…Note that this is a preliminary result and fuel consumption can be improved on a single-case basis once a target orbiter is selected for further study as it is done on a couple of temporarily captured orbiters at the end of this paper. In [7], the authors focus on asteroid 2006RH 120 and provide more detailed results for this specific target with realistic rendezvous and return transfers. In a broader context, the results suggest that the algorithm initialization problem may feasibly be overcome for a general optimal control problem following the techniques developed within this paper.…”

“…A redirected TCO would then be an ideal target for a manned mission. Third, the small size of the TCOs allows us to envision returning, not only a sample, but the entire asteroid to Earth which would provide a breakthrough in the geophysical study of asteroid, see [7] for examples of return mission on RH 120 . Finally, the chaotic trajectories (non-planar, non-elliptic) is actually appealing in the sense that spacecraft maneuvering capabilities and mission planning strategies can truly be put to the test.…”