Constructing Four-Body Ballistic Lunar Transfers via Analytical Energy Conditions

Abstract: This paper derives and summarizes the analytical conditions for lunar ballistic capture and constructs ballistic lunar transfers based on these conditions. We adopt the Sun-Earth/Moon planar bicircular restricted four-body problem as the dynamical model to construct lunar transfers. First, the analytical conditions for ballistic capture are derived based on the relationship between the Keplerian energy with respect to the Moon and the angular momentum with respect to the Moon, summarized in form of exact ranges of the Jacobi energy at the lunar insertion point. Both sufficient and necessary condition and necessary condition are developed. Then, an optimization method combined with the analytical energy conditions is proposed to construct ballistic lunar transfers. Simulations shows that a high ballistic capture ratio is achieved by our proposed method (100$\%$ for direct insertion and 99.15$\%$ for retrograde insertion). Examining the obtained ballistic lunar transfers, the effectiveness of the analytical energy conditions is verified. Samples of our obtained lunar transfers achieves a lower impulse and shorter time of flight compared to two conventional methods, further strengthening the advantage of our proposed method.