Optimal Trajectories for Planetary Pole-Sitter Missions

Walmsley, Mike; Heiligers, Jeannette; Ceriotti, Matteo; McInnes, Colin R.

doi:10.2514/1.g000465

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…An initial guess for these pole-sitter-like orbits can be obtained from the information provided in Figure 4 as well as the techniques previously developed to obtain pole-sitter orbits at Earth [33,34] and other inner-Solar System planets [35]. The approach consists of assuming a particular shape for the orbit, inverting the equations of motion to obtain the required solar sail acceleration vector and using the resulting initial condition as an initial guess in a differential corrector scheme.…”

Section: Solar Sail Pole-sitter-like Orbits In the Bi-circular + mentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar-Sail Orbital Motion About Asteroids and Binary Asteroid Systems

Heiligers

Scheeres

2018

Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics

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Solar radiation pressure (SRP) is a major orbital perturbation for missions to small bodies like asteroids and binary asteroid systems. This paper studies the utilization of SRP on a solar sail for asteroid mission applications, specifically to generate artificial equilibrium points (AEPs) and displaced periodic orbits in these systems. For the single asteroid case, contours of AEPs for constant sail acceleration magnitudes are found in the Hill + SRP problem as well as periodic orbits around these AEPs. The binary system is modeled by first adding a fourth-body perturbation to the Hill + SRP dynamics, demonstrating the effect of the smaller asteroid as an oscillatory motion superimposed on the unperturbed orbit. Truly periodic orbits are obtained in the bi-circular + SRP problem, showing the existence of socalled pole-sitter-like orbits above the binary system's orbital plane. Higher-fidelity dynamical effects are investigated for these pole-sitter-like orbits for binary system 1999 KW4, showing feasibility of the orbits around aphelion. All results are generated for nearterm sail technology and for a simple, fixed sail attitude relative to the Sun. They therefore = Denotes first order derivative with respect to time   = Denotes second order derivative with respect to time

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Section: Solar Sail Pole-sitter-like Orbits In the Bi-circular + mentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar-Sail Orbital Motion About Asteroids and Binary Asteroid Systems

Heiligers

Scheeres

2018

Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics

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“…By partially offsetting or complementing the effects of gravity, NKOs show evident advantages in that new orbits can be designed. The design [4][5][6][7][8][9][10], optimization [4][5][6][7][8][9][10], stability and control [11][12][13] of NKOs have been researched extensively; proposed applications range from pole-sitters [3,4], lunar far-side communication and lunar south-pole coverage [5][6][7], Mars, Mercury and Venus remote sensing [7,8], further Mars exploration [9], to near-Earth asteroids rendezvous [10]. The concept of using an NKO to displace the GEO has already been proposed [1] and the existence of light-levitated GEOs for solar sailing has already been shown by Baig and McInnes [14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this field, research is flourishing, aiming to maximize the potential of the hybrid sail propulsion system. Proposed concepts include optimal transfers from Earth to Venus and Mars [28,29], optimal trajectories for Earth pole-sitters [3,4], pole-sitters at other planets [8], and displaced orbits in the Earth-Moon system [30]. As those studies show, the hybrid sail has better performance in terms of long-term propellant consumption than pure SEP and lower technological challenge than a large solar sail, at the cost of increased system and control complexity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Loosely-displaced geostationary orbits with hybrid sail propulsion

Yuan

Heiligers

Ceriotti

2018

Aerospace Science and Technology

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To overcome the congestion of geostationary orbit slots, previous work proposed to use vertically-displaced, non-Keplerian geostationary orbits by means of continuous low-thrust propulsion in the form of hybrid solar sail and solar electric propulsion (hybrid sail). This work extends and generalizes that concept by loosening the position constraint and introducing a station-keeping box. Sub-optimal orbits are first found with an inverse method that still satisfy the geostationary position constraint (i.e., no station-keeping box), which will be referred to as ideal displaced geostationary orbits. For these sub-optimal orbits, it is found that the hybrid sail saves propellant mass compared to the pure solar electric propulsion case: for solar sail lightness numbers of up to a value of 0.2 and the most favorable time during the year (i.e., at summer solstice), the hybrid sail saves up to 71.6% propellant mass during a single day compared to the use of pure solar electric propulsion. Subsequently, the sub-optimal orbits are used as a first-guess for a direct optimization algorithm based on Gauss pseudospectral transcription, which loosens the position constraint. This enables a more flexible trajectory around the ideal displaced geostationary orbit and lets the solar sail contribute more efficiently to the required acceleration. It therefore leads to a further propellant savings of up to 73.8%. Finally, the mass budget shows that by using by using far-term solar sail technology, the hybrid propulsion system enables an evident reduction in the required initial mass of the spacecraft for a given payload mass with a relatively long mission duration.

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“…The period of any solar sail periodic orbit in the Earth-Moon system thus needs to equal 2/ S   or a multiple thereof. The authors have previously adapted the differential corrector scheme for classical orbits as described by Howell in Reference [16] to include a constraint such that the period is indeed driven towards a value of 2/ S   [17]. This constraint then also provides an additional equation to solve for one of the unknown initial states, which leads to the second main difference: while the differential corrector scheme for classical orbits requires one of the unknown initial states to be fixed, the addition of the periodicity constraint allows all initial states to be free.…”

Section: Solar Sail Periodic Orbitsmentioning

confidence: 99%