6–9 Nov 2018
DLR Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany
Europe/Amsterdam timezone

POINCARE: A MULTI-BODY, MULTI-SYSTEM TRAJECTORY DESIGN TOOL

7 Nov 2018, 14:00
30m
103 and 105 combined

103 and 105 combined

Building 135
Oral presentation at the conference 02: Loitering, and Orbiting Loitering, Orbiting #1

Speaker

Dr Mar Vaquero (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

Description

Poincare is a modular trajectory design tool based on a catalog of three-body science orbits and a differential corrector to compute connecting transfer arcs between orbits in multi-body systems. Poincare attempts to offer a unified approach, i.e., an "all-in-one" integrated search within one interface and setup in MONTE (JPL's signature astrodynamic computing platform) The Science Orbit Design Tool -- first module --facilitates rapid and well-informed decisions regarding the selection of periodic orbits for a particular mission and enables the simultaneous study of various orbit alternatives. The second module -- the Reference Trajectory Design Tool -- allows the user to calculate optimal transfer paths from a departure orbit to a science orbit via dynamical systems structures, resulting in an end-to-end reference trajectory.

In the 1960's, the application of insight from the circular restricted three-body problem (CR3BP) moved into the `space age' when a mission to the Lagrange points was considered for NASA's Apollo program. Since then, many of the structures that emerge in the CR3BP have been more actively exploited in trajectory design. Consequently, successful missions to the vicinity of the Lagrange points have since been launched, including the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3), the Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), and the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP). Parallel to the development of these mission concepts, the possibility of applying dynamical systems techniques to the design of these types of trajectories was also being considered. In fact, in the 1960's, Conley had investigated low energy transfer orbits to the Moon using dynamical system techniques. In the 1990's, the use of invariant manifolds in the design process to construct pathways between the Earth and the Sun-Earth libration points was finally applied in an actual trajectory: the trajectory supporting the Genesis mission.

Summary

Poincare is a modular trajectory design tool based on a cat- alog of three-body science orbits and a differential corrector to compute connecting transfer arcs between orbits in multi- body systems. Poincare attempts to offer a unified approach, i.e., an ”all-in-one” integrated search within one interface and setup in MONTE (JPL’s signature astrodynamic computing platform [1].) The Science Orbit Design Tool – first module – facilitates rapid and well-informed decisions regarding the se- lection of periodic orbits for a particular mission and enables the simultaneous study of various orbit alternatives. The sec- ond module – the Reference Trajectory Design Tool – allows the user to calculate optimal transfer paths from a departure orbit to a science orbit via dynamical systems structures, re- sulting in an end-to-end reference trajectory.

Primary author

Dr Mar Vaquero (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

Co-author

Dr Juan Senent (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

Presentation materials

Peer reviewing

Paper