An Orbital Transfer Approach for the Consecutive Collision Orbits Problem
by
Antonio Fernando Bertachini de A. Prado
National Institute for Space Research - INPE - Brazil

The problem of transfer orbits from one body back to the same body has been under investigation for a long time. Hénon originally developed a timing condition in the eccentric anomaly for orbits that allow a spacecraft to leave the massless body M2, go in an orbit around the other primary M1 and meet M2 again, after a certain time. This was treated as the problem of consecutive collision orbits in the restricted three body problem. In the present research this problem is formulated as that of an orbit transfer, which can be solved with Gooding's implementation of the Lambert's problem. Both cases, with the target body in a circular orbit or in an elliptic orbit are considered in the present research. All possible types of orbits for the spacecraft M3 are considered: elliptic, parabolic and hyperbolic. At the same time a new problem has been solved: the transfer of the spacecraft from M2 to points which are in the same circular orbit as M2, but in different locations. Next, these transfer orbits are studied in terms of the Delta-V and the time required for the transfer. The Delta-Vs are plotted against the transfer time for several cases. These orbits are studied in detail.

Date received: February 25, 2004

Copyright © 2004 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # cakt-71.