This study investigates the problem of areostationary orbits around Mars in three-dimensional space. Areostationary orbits are expected to be used to establish a future telecommunication network for the exploration of Mars. However, no artificial satellites have been placed in these orbits thus far. The characteristics of the Martian gravity field are presented, and areostationary points and their linear stability are cal- culated. By taking linearized solutions in the planar case as the initial guesses and utilizing the Levenberg-Marquardt method, families of periodic orbits around areo- stationary points are shown to exist. Short-period orbits and long-period orbits are found around linearly stable areostationary points, but only short-period orbits are found around unstable areostationary points. Vertical periodic orbits around both lin- early stable and unstable areostationary points are also examined. Satellites in these periodic orbits could depart from areostationary points by a few degrees in longitude, which would facilitate observation of the Martian topography. Based on the eigenval- ues of the monodromy matrix, the evolution of the stability index of periodic orbits is determined. Finally, heteroclinic orbits connecting the two unstable areostationary points are found, providing the possibility for orbital transfer with minimal energy consumption.
This paper investigates the motion planning of redundant free-floating manipulators with seven prismatic joints. On the earth, prismatic-jointed manipulators could only position their end-effectors in a desired way. However, in space, the end-effectors of free-floating manipulators can achieve both the desired orientation and desired position due to the dynamical coupling between manipulator and satellite movement, which is formally expressed by linear and angular momentum conservation laws. In this study, a tractable algorithm particle swarm optimization combined with differential evolution （PSODE） is provided to deal with the motion planning of redundant free-floating prismatic-jointed manipulators, which could avoid the pseudo inverse of the Jacobian matrix. The polynomial functions, as argument in sine functions are used to specify the joint paths. The co- efficients of the polynomials are optimized to achieve the desired end-effector orientation and position, and simulta- neously minimize the unit-mass-kinetic energy using the redundancy. Relevant simulations prove that this method pro- vides satisfactory smooth paths for redundant free-floating prismatic-jointed manipulators. This study could help to recognize the advantages of redundant prismatic-jointed space manipulators.
The lunar probe may still have some remaining fuel after completing its predefined Moon exploration mission and is able to carry out some additional scientific or technological tasks after escaping from the Moon orbit.The Moon departure mission for the lunar probe is the focus of this paper.The possibility of the spacecraft orbiting the Moon to escape the Moon's gravitational pull is analyzed.The trajectory design for the Earth-Moon system libration point mission is studied in a full ephemeris dynamical model,which considers the non-uniform motion of the Moon around the Earth,the gravity of the Sun and planets and the finite thrust of the onboard engine.By applying the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm,the trajectory design for the transfer from the Moon-centered orbit to the L1 halo orbit,the station-keeping strategies for the Earth-Moon halo orbit and the construction of homoclinic and heteroclinic orbits are investigated.Taking the tracking conditions and engineering constraints into account,two feasible schemes for the Moon departure libration point mission for the lunar probe are presented.
It is of great interest to study the dynamical environment on the surface of non-spherical small bodies, especially for asteroids. This paper takes a simple case of a cube for instance, investigates the dynamics of a particle on the surface of a rotating homogeneous cube, and derives fruitful results. Due to the symmetrical characteristic of the cube, the analysis includes motions on two different types of surfaces. For each surface, both the frictionless and friction cases are considered. (i) Without consideration of friction, the surface equilibria in both of the different surfaces are examined and periodic orbits are derived. The analysis of equilibria and periodic orbits could assist understanding the skeleton of motions on the surface of asteroids. (ii) For the friction cases, the conditions that the particle does not escape from the surface are examined. Due to the effect of the friction, there exist the equilibrium regions on the surface where the particle stays at rest, and the locations of them are found. Finally, the dust collection regions are predicted. Future work will extend to real asteroid shapes.
The lunar probe often has some remaining fuel on completing the predefined Moon exploration mission and may carry out some additional tasks from the Moon orbit using the fuel.The possibility for the lunar probe to escape from the Moon and the Earth is analyzed.Design and optimization of the trajectory from the Moon orbit to the Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) using the spacecraft's residual fuel is studied.At first,the semi-major axis,inclinations and the phase relations with the Earth of all the numbered NEAs are investigated to preliminarily select the possible targets.Based on the Sun-centered two-body problem,the launch window and the asteroid candidates are determined by calculating the minimum delta-v for two-impulse rendezvous mission and one-impulse flyby mission,respectively.For a precise designed trajectory,a full ephemeris dynamical model,which includes gravities of the Sun,the planets and the Moon,is adopted by reading the JPL ephemeris.The departure time,arrival time,burning time duration and thrust angles are set as variables to be designed and optimized.The optimization problem is solved via the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm.Moreover,two feasible NEA flyby missions are presented.
