Realistic Orbits about the Martian Moons
Abstract
Orbits about the Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, previously found to be stable by the Poincare surface of section technique in a restricted three- body system, were investigated with non-zero eccentricity of the moons added to the dynamics of the planar four-body system (Mars, moon sun, artificial satellite). Although not strictly applicable to this case, the surface of section technique was used to verify whether or not the previously found stable orbits were realistic when a real world perturbation was added to the system dynamics. The surface of section technique involves the numerical integration of several orbits with the same initial value of the Hamiltonian based on matching the angular rates of the orbit and moon with respect to Mars. Apoapsis and periapsis points of the orbits were plotted in the two-dimensional configuration space. Stable orbits were found when the points formed regions which are bounded; chaotic orbits were indicated by random points.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1990
- Accession Number
- ADA230473
Entities
People
- Samuel R. Bryant
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology