Ballistic analysis of a mission to Jupiter’s moon Callisto with landing on the surface

Abstract

The article presents the results of a study on the basis of which a set of mathematical models was developed for ballistic analysis of a mission to send a small spacecraft to the satellite of Jupiter, Callisto and its landing on the surface of the satellite. In this mission, it is proposed to use a gravity assist maneuver around the Earth and an aerodynamic maneuver near Jupiter to reduce the cost of the working fluid of the spacecraft. The minimum required thrust of the engines and the duration of the soft landing maneuver of a spacecraft with a given mass on the satellite are estimated. The optimal launch date was found for the possibility of launching a spacecraft using a medium-lift Soyuz-2 launch vehicle. The simulation of the movement was carried out numerically, in the Mathcad mathematical package, all the dependence diagrams necessary for the analysis of the movement were constructed.

Keywords

• spacecraft
• interplanetary flight
• gravity assist
• mathematical modeling
• piecewise conical approximation
• jupiter’s moon callisto
• landing on the surface