Stationkeeping strategy for quasi-periodic orbit around Earth–Moon L2 point

Abstract

Quasi-periodic orbits in the Earth–Moon system are highly sensitive and even small errors in position and/or velocity have strong influence on the trajectory. These types of trajectories are unstable and must be controlled to maintain the corresponding orbits. This paper investigates the stationkeeping strategy for quasi-periodic orbits near the translunar libration point with full consideration of the contribution from the Sun’s gravity and the Moon’s eccentricity, in which the continuous low-thrust is preformed to enforce the probe following several onboard decided target points on the baseline. A new high-fidelity model is derived to describe motions of the quasi-periodic orbits by using the standard ephemerides. Based on the improved multiple-shooting method and the proposed model, a baseline trajectory is obtained. Then, a new continuous low-thrust-based stationkeeping strategy is proposed. Specifically, by employing Gauss pseudospectral method in the stationkeeping algorithm and by introducing the maximal excursion and fixed time interval, the target points on the baseline trajectory are chosen onboard based on real-time data. Simulation results show that the unstable quasi-periodic orbit can be maintained effectively with the low-energy consumption.