Phasing trajectories of deploying multiple satellites into a constellation in a halo orbit

What is it about?

This work is motivated by a proposed mission that involves multiple CubeSats deployed in an Earth-moon L2 halo orbit to support the positioning of an asset on the far side of the moon. To achieve favorable coverage and positioning accuracy, it is desired to place at least four CubeSats along a halo orbit as evenly as possible. This Note presents three trajectory design methods for orbit phasing. In particular, the combined invariant manifolds and symmetric connecting trajectories can lead to various phase angle differences at a Δv cost (i.e. <100 m/s) affordable to CubeSats.

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Why is it important?

While constellation deployment and phasing trajectories in the 2-body problem have been intensively studied and practiced in real missions, this Note concerns the issue in the 3-body problem, which will serve for future applications in the 3-body regime. The work applies 3-body dynamics in the trajectory design and reveals the Pareto front of the optimal trajectories. The relation between minimum Δv and the phase difference is obtained as the reference for constellation formation as well as rendezvous missions.

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