Chaos Control with Ion Propulsion [CL]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1702.06581


The escape dynamics around the triangular Lagrangian point L5 in the real Sun-Earth-Moon-Spacecraft system is investigated. Appearance of the finite time chaotic behaviour suggests that widely used methods and concepts of dynamical system theory can be useful in constructing a desired mission design. Existing chaos control methods are modified in such a way that we are able to protect a test particle from escape. We introduce initial condition maps in order to have a suitable numerical method to describe the motion in high dimensional phase space. Results show that the structure of initial condition maps can be split into two well-defined domains. One of these two parts has a regular contiguous shape and is responsible for long time escape; it is a long-lived island. The other one shows a filamentary fractal structure in initial condition maps. The short time escape is governed by this object. This study focuses on a low-cost method which successfully transfers a reference trajectory between these two regions using an appropriate continuous control force. A comparison of the Earth-Moon transfer is also presented to show the efficiency of our method.

Read this paper on arXiv…

J. Sliz, T. Kovacs and A. Suli
Thu, 23 Feb 17
20/48

Comments: 14 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomische Nachrichten