Orbit Mechanics About Planetary Satellites Including Higher Order Gravity Fields

摘要

This paper explores orbit mechanics about a planetary satellite in the Hill 3-body problem. The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission is used to motivate our analysis, in particular we consider motion about Europa. The model used includes the tidal force and the J_2 and J_3 gravity effects. We develop an approximate theory of motion using an averaging approach and find orbits that have constant orbital element values on average. The stability of these orbits is investigated and their viability in the unaveraged system is studied. An analytic theory using the nonlinear manifolds of unstable frozen orbits is developed which can significantly extend the lifetime of these orbits.