Design of Ganymede-Synchronous Frozen Orbit around Europa

A Ganymede-synchronous frozen orbit around Europa provides a stable spatial geometry between a Europa probe and a Ganymede lander, which facilitates the observation of Ganymede and data transmission between probes. However, the third-body gravitation perturbation of Ganymede continues to accumulate...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Mathematics (Basel) 2023-01, Vol.11 (1), p.41
Main Authors: Huang, Xuxing, Yang, Bin, Li, Shuang, Feng, Jinglang, Masdemont, Josep J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavior
Data transmission
Design techniques
Europa
Europa (Satellite)
Europa probe
Evolution
Food science
frozen orbit
Ganymede
Ganymede (Satellite)
Ganymede-synchronous orbit
Geometry
Gravitation
Jovian system
Jupiter
Jupiter probes
Jupiter satellites
Observations
Orbital elements
Orbital mechanics
Orbits
Perturbation
Planning
Synchronous communications
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A Ganymede-synchronous frozen orbit around Europa provides a stable spatial geometry between a Europa probe and a Ganymede lander, which facilitates the observation of Ganymede and data transmission between probes. However, the third-body gravitation perturbation of Ganymede continues to accumulate and affect the long-term evolution of the Europa probe. In this paper, the relative orbit of Ganymede with respect to Europa is considered to accurately capture the perturbation potential. The orbital evolution behaviors of the Europa probe under the non-spherical gravitation of Europa and the third-body gravitation of Jupiter and Ganymede are studied based on a double-averaging framework. Then, the initial orbital conditions of the Ganymede-synchronous frozen orbit are developed. A station-keeping maneuver was performed to maintain the orbital elements to achieve the Ganymede-synchronous and frozen behaviors. A numerical simulation showed that the consumption for orbital maintenance is acceptable.
ISSN:2227-7390
2227-7390
DOI:10.3390/math11010041