In the context of Human Spaceflight exploration mission scenario, with the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOP-G) orbiting about Earth-Moon Lagrangian Point (EML), Rendezvous and Docking (RVD) operational activities are mandatory and critical for the deployment and utilization of the LOP-G (station assembly, crew rotations, cargo delivery, lunar sample return). There is extensive experience with RVD in the two-body problem: in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to various space stations, or around quasi-circular Low Lunar Orbits (LLO), the latter by Apollo by means of manual RVD. However, the RVD problem in non-Keplerian environments has rarely been addressed and no RVD has been performed to this date in the vicinity of Lagrangian points (LP) where Keplerian dynamics are no longer applicable. Dynamics in such regions are more complex, but multi-body dynamics also come with strong advantages that need to be further researched by the work proposed here. The aim of this paper is to present methods and results of investigations conducted to first set up strategies for far and close rendezvous between a target (the LOP-G, for example) and a chaser (cargo, crew vehicle, ascent and descent vehicle, station modules, etc.) depending on target and chaser orbit. Semi-analytical tools have been developed to compute and model families of orbits about the Lagrangian points in the Circular Restricted Three Body Problem (CR3BP) like NRHO, DRO, Lyapunov, Halo and Lissajous orbits. As far as close rendezvous is concerned, implementation of different linear and non-linear models used to describe cis-lunar relative motion will be discussed and compared, in particular for NRHO and DRO.
ABSTRACTIn the context of future human spaceflight exploration missions, Rendezvous and Docking (RVD) activities are critical for the assembly and maintenance of cislunar structures. The scope of this research is to investigate the specifics of orbits of interest for RVD in the cislunar realm and to propose novel strategies to safely perform these kinds of operations. This paper focuses on far rendezvous approaches and passively safe drift trajectories in the Ephemeris model. The goal is to exhibit phasing orbit requirements to ensure a safe far approach. Ephemeris representations of Near Rectilinear Halo Orbits (NRHOs) were derived using multiple-shooting and adaptive receding-horizon targeting algorithms. Simulations showed significant drift and overlapping properties for phasing and target orbits of interest, motivating the search for safe natural drift trajectories and using impact prediction strategies.
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