Periodic and Quasi-Periodic Orbits near Close Planetary Moons

Upcoming missions toward remote planetary moons will fly in chaotic dynamic environments that are significantly perturbed by the oblateness of the host planet. Such a dominant perturbation is often neglected when designing spacecraft trajectories in planetary moon systems. This paper introduces a new time-periodic set of equations of motion that is based on the analytical solution of the zonal equatorial problem and better describes the dynamic evolution of a spacecraft subject to the gravitational attraction of a moon and its oblate host planet. Such a system, hereby referred to as the zonal hill problem, remains populated by resonant periodic orbits and families of two-dimensional quasi-periodic invariant tori that are calculated by means of numerical continuation procedures. The resulting periodic and quasi-periodic trajectories are investigated for the trajectory design of future planetary moons explorers.

Automated summary

This paper introduces a new time-periodic set of equations of motion that better describes the dynamic evolution of a spacecraft in planetary moon systems. The resulting periodic and quasi-periodic trajectories are investigated for future trajectory design of planetary moon explorers.