Low Energy Transfer to the Moon
Koon, W. S., M. Lo, J. E. Marsden, and S. Ross
Celestial Mech. and Dyn. Astron., 81, 63-73
Abstract:
In 1991, the Japanese Hiten mission used a low energy transfer
with a ballistic capture at the Moon which required less
V than a standard Hohmann transfer. In this paper, we
apply the dynamical systems techniques developed in our earlier
work to reproduce systematically a Hiten-like mission. We
approximate the SunEarthMoon-spacecraft 4-body system as two
3-body systems. Using the invariant manifold structures of the
Lagrange points of the 3-body systems, we are able to construct
low energy transfer trajectories from the Earth which execute
ballistic capture at the Moon. The techniques used in the design
and construction of this trajectory may be applied in many
situations.