Low-Thrust Trajectory Design in Multi-Body Environments Through Patched Periodic Orbits

Given NASA's interest in refocusing the Human Program on the moon with the Lunar Gateway, and desire to explore the ocean world moons of Jupiter and Saturn, there's no doubt that future mission planning will involve navigating through systems with complex multi-body dynamics. Considered alongside the growing popularity of SmallSat technology and low-thrust propulsion systems, an impetus to focus on studying low-thrust trajectory design in multi-body environments is born. Especially in the realm of CubeSat design, where the propulsion systems are vastly miniaturized and the onboard sensors operate with less precision, the difficulty in designing complex trajectories increases relative to their larger-sized counterparts. As time marches on, the application of SmallSats and CubeSats will naturally extend to more scientifically ambitious missions (e.g. MarCO). The process of designing complex missions that may involve interplantary trajectories, cislunar transfers, or planetary moon tours for small satellites is not mature, and the time is ripe to explore promising methodologies that can benefit the field. The proposed research will apply low-thrust control to a recently developed methodology for preliminary low-energy trajectory design, which patches together periodic orbits in the restricted 3-body problem to build a trajectory. The addition of low-thrust segments to individual periodic orbits will be examined to see what new connections appear with adjacent periodic orbits. These connections will leveraged to construct new pathways for cislunar transfers and planetary moon tours. Analysis will be performed using the Odyssey tool from UT Austin’s Space Trajectory Computation Lab, and results will be used as initial guesses for higher-fidelity NASA software such as Mystic or Copernicus. There are several perceived benefits to this research. The time is ripe to explore promising methodologies for efficient travel in multi-body environments, especially for systems with low-thrust propulsion systems. This work may provide a framework for the preliminary mission design of future SmallSat, CubeSat, and other low-cost missions. It could also streamline the process of finding higher-fidelity solutions to trajectories for these missions, since the results of the preliminary analysis may be well-suited as initial guesses for such optimization. Ultimately, the research lends itself toward revealing new mission possibilities to spacecraft with low-thrust systems, and explores how to design them in a cost-effective way.

There are several perceived benefits to this research. The time is ripe to explore promising methodologies for efficient travel in multi-body environments, especially for systems with low-thrust propulsion systems. This work may provide a framework for the preliminary mission design of future SmallSat, CubeSat, and other low-cost missions. It could also streamline the process of finding higher-fidelity solutions to trajectories for these missions, since the results of the preliminary analysis may be well-suited as initial guesses for such optimization. Ultimately, the research lends itself toward revealing new mission possibilities to spacecraft with low-thrust systems, and explores how to design them in a cost-effective way.

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