Prof. Martin Lara, Alessandro Masat, and Camilla Colombo propose a perturbation approach to study the effect of a planet’s oblateness on hyperbolic flybys.
The framework remains similar to elliptic-type perturbation theories, up to the proper selection of analytical boundary conditions which are, in contrast to elliptic orbits, no longer arbitrary.
Modern techniques, such as Deprit’s Radial Intermediary for the elimination of the parallax, allow the extension of the approach to second order terms. Compared to latest studies on the hyperbolic problem which date back to the 1960s, the proposed method visibly improves the accuracy of analytical propagations.