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Main Authors: Almeida Jr, A. K. de, de Oliveira, V. M., Vaillant, T., Maia, D., Correia, A. C. M., Barbosa, D., Santos, L. T. B.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.11694
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author Almeida Jr, A. K. de
de Oliveira, V. M.
Vaillant, T.
Maia, D.
Correia, A. C. M.
Barbosa, D.
Santos, L. T. B.
author_facet Almeida Jr, A. K. de
de Oliveira, V. M.
Vaillant, T.
Maia, D.
Correia, A. C. M.
Barbosa, D.
Santos, L. T. B.
contents The renewed global interest in lunar exploration requires new orbital strategies to ensure flight safety which can benefit extended lunar missions and service a plethora of planned instruments in the lunar orbit and surface. We investigate here the equivalent fuel consumption cost to transfer from (to) a given orbit and enter (leave) at any point of an invariant manifold associated with a Lyapunov orbit around the Earth-Moon $L_1$ Lagrangian point using bi-impulsive maneuvers. Whereas solving this type of transfer is generally computationally expensive, we simulate here tens of millions of transfers orbits, for different times of flight, Jacobi constants and spatial location on the manifold. We are able to reduce computational cost by taking advantage of the efficient procedure given by the Theory of Functional Connections for solving boundary value problems, represented with special constraints created to the purposes of this work. We develop here the methodology for constructing these transfers, and apply it to find a low-cost transfer from an orbit around the Earth to a stable manifold and another low-cost transfer from an unstable manifold to an orbit around the Moon. In the end, we obtain an innovative Earth-to-Moon transfer that involves a gravity assist maneuver with the Moon and allows a long stationed stage at the Lyapunov orbit around $L_1$ which can be used for designing multi-purpose missions for extended periods of time with low fuel costs. This is paramount to optimize new exploration concepts.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_11694
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Connecting Earth and Moon via the L1 Lagrangian point
Almeida Jr, A. K. de
de Oliveira, V. M.
Vaillant, T.
Maia, D.
Correia, A. C. M.
Barbosa, D.
Santos, L. T. B.
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
The renewed global interest in lunar exploration requires new orbital strategies to ensure flight safety which can benefit extended lunar missions and service a plethora of planned instruments in the lunar orbit and surface. We investigate here the equivalent fuel consumption cost to transfer from (to) a given orbit and enter (leave) at any point of an invariant manifold associated with a Lyapunov orbit around the Earth-Moon $L_1$ Lagrangian point using bi-impulsive maneuvers. Whereas solving this type of transfer is generally computationally expensive, we simulate here tens of millions of transfers orbits, for different times of flight, Jacobi constants and spatial location on the manifold. We are able to reduce computational cost by taking advantage of the efficient procedure given by the Theory of Functional Connections for solving boundary value problems, represented with special constraints created to the purposes of this work. We develop here the methodology for constructing these transfers, and apply it to find a low-cost transfer from an orbit around the Earth to a stable manifold and another low-cost transfer from an unstable manifold to an orbit around the Moon. In the end, we obtain an innovative Earth-to-Moon transfer that involves a gravity assist maneuver with the Moon and allows a long stationed stage at the Lyapunov orbit around $L_1$ which can be used for designing multi-purpose missions for extended periods of time with low fuel costs. This is paramount to optimize new exploration concepts.
title Connecting Earth and Moon via the L1 Lagrangian point
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.11694