Interplanetary trajectory design of solar sail spacecraft utilizing an invariant manifold

This paper deals with an in-plane trajectory design method for a solar sail spacecraft to rendezvous with a planet. In the interplanetary rendezvous problem, the spacecraft's velocity must coincide with the orbital velocity of the planet when it reaches the planet's orbit. This paper proposes a trajectory design procedure that utilizes an invariant manifold for a specified control profile to reach a target orbit. The proposed strategy allows a rendezvous to a planet in an elliptical orbit by adjusting the launch timing of the sailcraft when it starts from a circular orbit. Numerical simulations demonstrate the validity of the proposed procedure.