Speaker
Mr
Andrew Cox
(Purdue University)
Description
The Sun-Earth libration and Cis-Lunar environments are challenging regimes for trajectory designers with complex multi-body dynamics, perturbation modeling, and integration of propulsion influences. Beginning with libration orbits and research on dynamical systems (aka manifolds), several tools with application to libration orbits and Cis-lunar regions have been developed in cooperation between NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Purdue University. One of these innovative tools, the Adaptive Trajectory Design (ATD) tool is being used in conjunction with commercial software to design both a multi-body trajectory for the upcoming Lunar IceCube (L-IC) Cubesat mission and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) Sun-Earth L2 mission transfer. As a payload deployed by the Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) on the maiden flight of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), L-IC will use a lunar gravity assisted, multi-body transfer trajectory with an innovative RF Ion engine to achieve lunar capture and delivery to the science orbit. WFIRST trajectory deign is based on an optimal direct transfer trajectory to an L2 orbit.
In the paper, ATD utilities that permit the designer to categorize orbits by energy and amplitudes among other numerous design variables, Circular Restricted Three Body methods, and manifold generation are described along with the transfer trajectory design process for both missions. Based on the constrained L-IC EM-1 architecture and deployment, an assessment using ATD and dynamical system research tools has uncovered Euclidian regions of Cis-lunar space which permit a transition onto stable/unstable manifolds that encounter the Moon at the prerequisite arrival conditions, resulting in an innovative process. Using ATD’s powerful Poincare mapping tools and libration orbit generation via energy or orbit amplitudes, feasible WFIRST science orbits are generated that feed into the selection of optimal transfer manifolds from the low Earth orbit injection condition. These ATD utilities for both missions permit the interweave mapping of manifolds and conics to complete any Cis-lunar or Libration orbit design. ATD’s innovative applications will be fully defined and the basic operations and its interface to GSFC’s General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) for high fidelity modeling are presented.
| Applicant type | First author |
|---|
Primary author
Mr
David Folta
(NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center)
Co-authors
Mr
Andrew Cox
(Purdue University)
Ms
Cassandra Webster
(NASA)
Mr
Davide Guzzetti
(Purdue University)
Dr
Kathleen Howell
(Purdue University)
Ms
Natasha Bosanac
(Purdue University)
