Research on the Lissajous Trajectory Transfer of Large Area Mass Ratio Solar Sail Spacecraft

Abstract

Considering that the solar sail spacecraft working in the Lissajous orbit will be affected by the shadow of the earth or the solar wind, which sometime makes the spacecraft unable to work, we try to use the solar light pressure as the thrust to carry out the Lissajous orbit transfer in advance. Because the solar pressure parameters(cone angle, clock angle and solar pressure factor) will change the position of the libration points, we propose the idea of splicing the old and new libration point manifolds to transfer the escape spacecraft to the new Lissajous orbit to achieve orbit maintenance. The simulation results show that besides changing the cone angle and the solar pressure factor, the clock angle can also achieve orbit transfer, and the influence of the solar pressure factor on the periodic orbit is greater than the other two. This study provides a reference for the solar sail spacecraft in the aspects of periodic orbit transfer, orbit maintenance and avoidance of the earth's shadows.

Keywords

• artificial libration point
• solar sail spacecraft
• solar pressure
• periodic orbit transfer
• simulation
• lissajous orbit