Low-thrust transfers to candidate near rectilinear halo orbits facilitated by Invariant Manifolds

Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbits (NRHOs) are deemed to be favorable candidates for establishing a near-future crewed space station in the cis-lunar space. Although the 9: 2 resonant southern L2 NRHO has been earmarked as the working orbit for the Lunar Gateway Mission, a plethora of other neighboring resonant NRHOs are also viable options. The invariant manifolds of these periodic orbits provide natural pathways to a state in the vicinity of fixed points on the NRHOs. These manifolds can be leveraged while designing optimal low-thrust trajectories for both NRHO-boundand Earth-boundmissions. In this work, the effects of the ephemeris model (JPLs DE436) on three NRHO manifolds derived based on the Circular Restricted Three Body (CR3BP) assumptions are characterized and presented. The three neighboring NRHOs are then investigated in the domain of the aforementioned mission categories for piece-wise minimum-time and minimum-fuel, low-thrust transfers facilitated by invariant manifolds of the NRHOs. The minimum-time and minimum-fuel trajectory optimization problems are formulated using the indirect formalism of optimal control and solved using a single-shooting solution scheme. The relative merits of the stable manifolds are studied with regard to minimizing either mission time of flight or minimization of fuel consumption, for a set of representative low-thrust family of transfers.

Low-thrust transfers to candidate near rectilinear halo orbits facilitated by Invariant Manifolds Conference Paper