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Published 2005 | public
Journal Article

Spacecraft dynamics near a binary asteroid

Abstract

We study a simple model for an asteroid pair, namely a planar system consisting of a rigid body and a sphere. This model is interesting because it is one of the simplest that captures the coupling between rotational and translational dynamics. By assuming that the binary is in a relative equilibria of the system, we construct a model for the motion of a spacecraft about this asteroid pair without a®ecting its motion (that is, we consider a restricted problem). This model can be studied as a perturbation of the standard Restricted Three Body Problem (RTBP). We use the stable zones near the triangular relative equilibrium points of the binary and a normal form of the Hamiltonian to compute stable periodic and quasi-periodic orbits for the spacecraft, which enable it to observe the binary while the binary orbits around the Sun.

Additional Information

© 2005, Received September, 2004; revised May, 2005. Work partly supported by the California Institute of Technology President's Fund and NSF-ITR grant ACI-0204932. F.G. acknowledges the support of the Fulbright-GenCat postdoctoral program, the MCyT/FEDER Grant BFM2003-07521-C02-01 and the CIRIT grant 2001SGR{70.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023