Data-Driven Identification of Spacecraft Transport Pathways in Cislunar Space
Abstract
Trajectory design and prediction will benefit from a comprehensive understanding of the transport pathways governing motion in the chaotic Earth-Moon-Sun system. The term transport pathway refers to a set of trajectories with a similar behavior over a specified time interval, e.g., connecting distinct bounded motions or regions of a system. Together, these transport pathways supply insight into the global structure of the solution space. However, existing approaches struggle to extract a comprehensive set of transport pathways governing spatial motions in the Earth-Moon-Sun system across a wide array of itineraries, energies, models, and control profiles. Furthermore, they tend to require significant manual intervention or expertise. A comprehensive picture of the key transport pathways governing motion in the increasingly busy domain of cislunar space will inform trajectory design; space domain awareness; personnel training; decision-making; and the development of spacecraft path-planning technologies. By extracting transport pathways in cislunar space and assessing the impact of model parameters, we aim to broaden existing scientific knowledge in astrodynamics and celestial mechanics. However, our data-driven framework is also relevant to a wider array of disciplines.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Feb 06, 2025
- Source ID
- FA95502410217
Entities
People
- Natasha Bosanac
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Regents of the University of Colorado
- United States Air Force