RESEARCH ARTICLE


A Collocation Approach for Computing Solar Sail Lunar Pole-Sitter Orbits



Martin T. Ozimek, Daniel J. Grebow, Kathleen C. Howell*
School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Purdue University, Armstrong Hall of Engineering, 701 W. Stadium Ave, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-2045, USA

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2010
Volume: 3
First Page: 65
Last Page: 75
Publisher Id: TOAEJ-3-65
DOI: 10.2174/1874146001003010065

Article History:

Received Date: 10/12/2009
Revision Received Date: 29/06/2010
Acceptance Date: 09/07/2010
Electronic publication date: 29/10/2010
Collection year: 2010

© 2010 Ozimeket al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Purdue University, Armstrong Hall of Engineering, 701 W. Stadium Ave, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-2045, USA; Tel: +1 765 49- 45786; Fax: 1-765-494-0307; E-mail: howell@purdue.edu


Abstract

Implementation of a 12th-order Gauss-Lobatto collocation scheme is detailed, including mesh refinement iterations to meet a user-specified error tolerance. The algorithm is robust and efficient, locating path constrained orbits when little information is available regarding the behavior of the solutions. Using a Fourier series control law, the method is applied to the computation of highly unstable, pole-sitter orbits in the Earth-moon restricted three-body problem. The results are comparable to those obtained with standard explicit propagators.

Keywords: Solar sails, numerical methods, lunar pole-sitter, restricted three-body problem.