Transfers to Earth centered orbits via lunar gravity assist

摘要

The use of lunar gravity assist to transfer payloads to Earth centered orbits is investigated. Such payloads include communications spacecraft bound for geostationary orbits or spacecraft bound for high inclination Earth orbits. Though payloads need to be injected on translunar trajectories with apogees at the lunar distance, the use of lunar gravity to change the inclination of the orbit provides (for a range of launch site latitudes) a substantial increase in the payload mass delivered or a reduction in the required characteristic velocity required to achieve orbit. By using the restricted three body problem as an approximate model for the motion of a spacecraft in the Earth-Moon system, a perturbation procedure and an optimization algorithm are used to construct nominal solutions.