Control of chaos in the vicinity of the Earth‐Moon L5 Lagrangian point to keep a spacecraft in orbit

Abstract

AbstractThe concept of Space Manifold Dynamics is a new method of space research. We have applied it along with the basic idea of the method of Ott, Grebogi, and York (OGY method) to stabilize the motion of a spacecraft around the triangular Lagrange point L5 of the Earth‐Moon system. We have determined the escape rate of the trajectories in the general three‐ and four‐body problem and estimated the average lifetime of the particles. Integrating the two models we mapped in detail the phase space around the L5 point of the Earth‐Moon system. Using the phase space portrait our next goal was to apply a modified OGY method to keep a spacecraft close to the vicinity of L5. We modified the equation of motions with the addition of a time dependent force to the motion of the spacecraft. In our orbit‐keeping procedure there are three free parameters: (i) the magnitude of the thrust, (ii) the start time, and (iii) the length of the control. Based on our numerical experiments we were able to determine possible values for these parameters and successfully apply a control phase to a spacecraft to keep it on orbit around L5. (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)