Cislunar Periodic Orbits for Earth–Moon and Lagrange Point Surveillance

Abstract

International attention is being increasingly placed on the cislunar region of space, which offers to serve as the new high ground for land- and space-based operations. With an anticipated surge in cislunar traffic, it is paramount to be able to detect and track all objects in cislunar space to optimize mission readiness and prevent catastrophic collisions. Cislunar periodic orbits provide an elegant means to fill the observational capability gaps that are present in ground-based and/or near-Earth space-based sensors. In this research, cislunar periodic orbits are identified that provide frequent-to-consistent coverage of the and regions. Specifically, select orbits are analyzed, both individually and within a multiorbit sensor architecture, for their effectiveness (in terms of percent of visibility time) at monitoring target satellites in Lyapunov and halo orbits about the Earth–moon and Lagrange points. The results of this research show cislunar periodic orbits to be highly effective in monitoring Lyapunov and halo orbits about the Earth–moon and Lagrange points. Particular figures and the overall methodology are derived from a paper presented at the 2021 ASCEND Conference (Wilmer, A. P., Bettinger, R. A., and Little, B. D., “Cislunar Periodic Orbit Constellation Assessment for Space Domain Awareness of L1 and L2 Halo Orbits,” 2021 ASCEND Conference, 2021.).