The charged relative equilibria of a two spacecraft Coulomb formation moving in the context of a restricted two-body system and a circularly restricted three-body system are investigated. For a two-spacecraft formation moving in a central gravitational field it is often assumed that the center of the circular orbit is located at the primary mass, and the center of mass of the formation orbits around the primary in a great circle orbit. The relative equilibrium is called great circle if the center of mass of the formation moves on the plane with the center of the gravitational field residing on it; otherwise, it is called a non-great-circle orbit. Previous research shows that non-great-circle equilibria in low Earth orbits, have a deflection from the great circle equilibria of about a degree when spacecraft with unequal masses are separated by 350 km. This paper investigates these equilibria (radial, tangential and orbit normal in circular Earth orbit and Earth-Moon Libration points) in the context of two spacecraft Coulomb formation, and shows that the equilibria deflections are negligible (on the order of 10?6 degrees) even for very heterogeneous mass distributions. Further, the non-great-circle equilibria conditions for a two-spacecraft virtual Coulomb structure at the Lagrangian Libration points are developed. The development is based on exact gravitational and Coulomb potentials and considers the effect of mass asymmetry of the formation in the problem formulation.
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