A new description of planet-to-planet transfer in alternating rotating coordinate with applications

Abstract

In this paper, a new strategy to design a planet-to-planet transfer trajectory with low-thrust propulsion is proposed. Here the trajectory design is conducted on the supposition that a spacecraft moves from a Lagrangian point (L point) around a departure planet to a L point around a target planet. The L points mentioned here are the equilibrium solutions of the circular restricted three-body problems and they are defined on the two-celestial body fixed rotational coordinates. Therefore the L points around the departure planet and the target planet are defined on different rotational coordinates, so the design of the L point-to-L point transfer trajectory becomes complex. Then in this paper, new rotational coordinates are proposed which include these two different rotational coordinates. The feature of these proposed rotational coordinates is that the angular velocity of these coordinates continuously varies as the spacecraft moves. On these new coordinates, the L point around the departure planet and the L point around the target planet are described in one figure. By using these proposed rotational coordinates, a new trajectory design strategy can be proposed. In this strategy, the determination of the shape of the trajectory' and the thrust history can be separated and it becomes unnecessary to use complicated numerical calculation to solve two-point boundary value problems. By using this strategy, Sun-Earth L2 to Sun-Mars LI transfer trajectories are designed as an example. Copyright Show more