Abstract:
The possibility of keeping a spacecraft with a solar sail near an unstable triangular libration
point of a minor planet or a binary asteroid is studied under the assumption that only the
gravitation and the solar radiation influence the spacecraft motion. The case where the solar
sail orientation remains unchanged with respect to the frame of reference of the heliocentric
orbit of the asteroid mass center is considered. This means that the angle between the solar sail
normal and ecliptic, as well as the angle between this normal and the solar rays at the current
point, does not change during the motion. The spacecraft equations of motion are deduced under
assumptions of V.V. Beletsky’s generalized restricted circular problem of three bodies, but taking
into account the Sun radiation. The existence of a manifold of initial conditions for which it is
possible to choose the normal direction that guarantees the spacecraft bounded motion near the
libration point is established. Moreover, the dimension of this manifold coincides with that of
the phase space of the problem at which the libration point belongs to the manifold boundary. In
addition, some proposals for stabilization of the spacecraft motions are formulated for trajectories
beginning in the manifold.
Keywords:solar sail, libration point, binary asteroid, three-body problem
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