Francesca Scala JGCD paper

Dr. Francesca Scala, Prof. Ioannis Gkolias and Prof. Camilla Colombo propose a new study to for a fast trajectory design of distant planetary orbiter under the effect of Earth’s oblateness and the third body perturbation.

The framework is developed in the Hamiltonian representation to exploit the phase space for manoeuvre and trajectory design. The proposed fully-analytical methodology has been compared with a semi-analytical one to assess the advanatges and limitations of the approach.

The study has been applied to spacecraft in highly elliptical orbits in the Earth’s environment, and to a Venus planetary orbiter.