What is it about?
The bodies of a binary asteroid system have small masses and irregular shapes. In the vicinity of such a system, perturbations, like the Solar Radiation Pressure (SRP), can not be neglected when designing spacecraft trajectories. This paper shows how to integrate the SRP in the design of the trajectory of a spacecraft in that context, specially about the L1 Lagrangian point of the system.
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Why is it important?
As a mission to binary asteroid Didymos 65803 is planned to be launched in 2020, a lot of effort is put in place to understand the dyncamis of a spacecraft in its vicinity, which is based on the Circular Restricted Three Body Problem (CRTBP). As much of this effort is put on getting a highly detailed model of the primary bodies, less effort is put on studying how known families of orbit known to exist in the CRTBP are impacted by the SRP. This study aims at filling this by looking specifically at the impact of the SRP on trajectories around the collinear equilbrium points existing in the binary asteroid system.
Perspectives
I hope that this publication will only be a starting point in the study of the impact of SRP on orbital motion around binary asteroids. It will hopefully raise the awareness of the community on this and will be used for further studies on orbital dynamics.
Isabelle Jean
McGill University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Orbital Dynamics of a Spacecraft in the Vicinity of a Binary Asteroid System: Impact of Solar Radiation Pressure on Orbital Motion, January 2018, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA),
DOI: 10.2514/6.2018-0956.
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