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Spacecraft Formation Design Near the Sun-Earth L(sub 2) PointOver the next two decades international space agencies including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the European Space Agency are proposing space missions which employ distributed spacecraft technologies to enable vast improvements in remote sensing performance as compared to fundamental performance limitations associated with fairing sizes of even the largest launch vehicles. A key initial step towards enabling such challenging missions is the development of processes and algorithms for designing the desired motion of the spacecraft formation subject to simultaneous gravitational and fuel constraints. In this paper we develop analogous methodologies for designing trajectories of relative motion near the L(sub 2) point as have been thoroughly developed for the Earth-orbiting regime. In this preliminary study, we confine ourselves to the basic assumptions of the Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem where disturbances, non-gravitational effects, and fourth and greater body affects are ignored. The focus is on determining formations that are defined primarily by the natural gravitational effects on the vehicles, such that maintenance over long-term will not require significant fuel consumption.
Document ID
20040021405
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Authors
Collange, Guillaume
(SUPAERO Toulouse, France)
Leitner, Jesse
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
August 21, 2013
Publication Date
December 23, 2003
Subject Category
Spacecraft Design, Testing And Performance
Meeting Information
Meeting: AIAA GN and C Conference
Location: Providence, RI
Country: United States
Start Date: August 1, 2004
Sponsors: American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
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