Chaos Control with Ion Propulsion

Abstract

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.

arXiv comment14 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomische Nachrichten

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• Thirty Years of Turnstiles and Transport
• Stickiness in Chaos
• Secondary resonances of co-orbital motions
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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Celestial Mechanics and Polarization Optics of the Kordylewski Dust Cloud in the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point L5 Part II. Imaging Polarimetric Observation: New Evidence for the Existence of Kordylewski Dust Cloud
• Celestial Mechanics and Polarization Optics of the Kordylewski Dust Cloud in the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point L5 Part I. 3D Celestial Mechanical Modelling of Dust Cloud Formation