Space Systems Dynamics

Just as in the last year, the prestigious Astrodynamics Specialist Conference went online. Just as in the last year, our PhD student Anastasia Tselousova presented a geometric approach to the design of low-energy transfers to the Moon. However, this time she considered the more complicated case when a trajectory includes an outbound lunar flyby. So far, to design such a transfer, most of the researchers have resorted to purely numerical techniques facing the issue of initial guess choice. The proposed algorithm allows obtaining the solution in the planar bicircular four-body problem, which is an excellent initial guess for the subsequent adaptation to the ephemeris model by the multiple-shooting technique.

Anastasia Tselousova, Denis Perepukhov, Sergey Trofimov, and Maksim Shirobokov
Geometric Approach to the Design of Lunar-Gravity-Assisted Low-Energy
Earth-Moon Transfers