Cycler orbit design using low-thrust in the Sun-Earth-Moon system

Recently, a lot of studies have been focusing on the transfer to the Moon. Cycler orbits which can periodically encounter the Earth and the Moon using swingbys can provide a low-cost transportation system to the Moon. In previous studies, several methods to design cycler orbits have been developed based on the two-body problem. This paper improves the previous studies in terms of the following three factors. First, a cycler orbit is designed in the three-body problem. This expansion is basically difficult due to the sensitivity of the three-body dynamics. To overcome this problem, the orbit generated in the two-body problem of the Earth is used as an initial guess and expanded to the orbit in the three-body problem using multiple-shooting differential correction and mass continuation. Second, the accessibility of the other orbits in the cis-lunar region is investigated. It verifies whether the cycler orbit can connect to a family of Lyapunov orbit in the Earth-Moon system and calculates the required velocity change amount. Finally, the influence of perturbation from the Sun is taken into account. Then a new control method is proposed based on the linear quadratic regulator that enables to eliminate the influence of the Sun in the BCR4BP.