Families of transfers from the Moon to Distant Retrograde Orbits in cislunar space

Abstract

This paper presents different families of transfers from Low Lunar Orbit to Distant Retrograde Orbits in the Earth-Moon system and analyzes their characteristics from the perspective of velocity increment requirement, transfer time, and sensitivity to small perturbations. Initially, families of transfer trajectories in the Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem are found by the predictor-corrector method and numerical continuation. Each transfer uses two impulsive maneuvers. These families are computed for different parking orbit altitudes, constants of motion, and insertion points. Then, to investigate the sensitivity characteristics of each family, a metric based on Local Lyapunov Exponent is introduced and computed along each trajectory. This work provides various choices for future cargo and human-crewed missions in the cislunar space.