Periodic Attitudes of Libration Point Spacecrafts in the Earth-Moon System

Abstract

The attitude motion of a rigid spacecraft is studied in the Earth-Moon circular restricted three-body problem. Firstly, the equilibrium attitude and its stability as functions of the moments of inertia are discussed when the spacecraft is assumed at the libration points. Then, periodic attitudes of a spacecraft with mass distribution given in the stable regions are obtained. Regarding space mission applications, the Sun orientation is discussed, and the orbit-attitude resonances are constructed for spacecrafts working on the libration point orbits by means of a continuation procedure.