Families of Transfers from circular low Earth orbit to Distant Prograde Orbit around the Moon

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Fu, Shuyue, Wu, Di, Peng, Yihan, Shi, Peng, Gong, Shengping
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Fu, Shuyue
Wu, Di
Peng, Yihan
Shi, Peng
Gong, Shengping
author_facet Fu, Shuyue
Wu, Di
Peng, Yihan
Shi, Peng
Gong, Shengping
contents Distant prograde orbits around the Moon exhibit remarkable potential for practical applications such as cislunar surveillance activities and low-energy transfers due to their instability. Previous works on transfers from circular low Earth orbit to distant prograde orbits mainly focused on construction methods based on dynamical structures, lacking a comprehensive analysis of the solution space of this transfer scenario. This paper investigates the solution space and identifies families of transfers from a 167 km circular low Earth orbit to a 1:1 distant prograde orbit. In particular, grid search and trajectory continuation are performed to construct these transfer trajectories. Initial guesses of the transfers are selected in the 1:1 distant prograde orbit through a backward propagation strategy and are then corrected to satisfy specified constraints. Based on the obtained solutions, a linear predictor is derived to predict more feasible solutions and a predictor-corrector continuation method is used to extend the solution space. Twelve transfer families are identified, most of which are new or previously underexplored. The distributions of construction parameters and transfer characteristics of these twelve families are analyzed and discussed, showing which families are applicable to which types of specific practical missions. Comparison between the obtained solution and solution developed by previous works is further performed to imply the effects of the selection of dynamical model on transfer construction.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_01769
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Families of Transfers from circular low Earth orbit to Distant Prograde Orbit around the Moon
Fu, Shuyue
Wu, Di
Peng, Yihan
Shi, Peng
Gong, Shengping
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Optimization and Control
Distant prograde orbits around the Moon exhibit remarkable potential for practical applications such as cislunar surveillance activities and low-energy transfers due to their instability. Previous works on transfers from circular low Earth orbit to distant prograde orbits mainly focused on construction methods based on dynamical structures, lacking a comprehensive analysis of the solution space of this transfer scenario. This paper investigates the solution space and identifies families of transfers from a 167 km circular low Earth orbit to a 1:1 distant prograde orbit. In particular, grid search and trajectory continuation are performed to construct these transfer trajectories. Initial guesses of the transfers are selected in the 1:1 distant prograde orbit through a backward propagation strategy and are then corrected to satisfy specified constraints. Based on the obtained solutions, a linear predictor is derived to predict more feasible solutions and a predictor-corrector continuation method is used to extend the solution space. Twelve transfer families are identified, most of which are new or previously underexplored. The distributions of construction parameters and transfer characteristics of these twelve families are analyzed and discussed, showing which families are applicable to which types of specific practical missions. Comparison between the obtained solution and solution developed by previous works is further performed to imply the effects of the selection of dynamical model on transfer construction.
title Families of Transfers from circular low Earth orbit to Distant Prograde Orbit around the Moon
topic Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.01769