Low-Thrust Trajectory Design for A Cislunar CubeSat Leveraging Structures from the Bicircular Restricted Four-Body Problem

Abstract

The upcoming Lunar IceCube (LIC) mission will deliver a 6U CubeSat to a low lunar orbit via a ride-share opportunity during NASAs Artemis 1 mission. This presents a challenging trajectory design scenario, as the vast change in energy required to transfer from the initial deployment state to the destination orbit is compounded by the limitations of the LICs low-thrust engine. This investigation addresses these challenges by developing a trajectory design framework that utilizes dynamical structures available in the Bicircular Restricted Four-Body Problem (BCR4BP) along with a robust direct collocation algorithm. Maps are created that expedite the selection of invariant manifold paths from a periodic staging orbit in the BCR4BP that offer favorable connections between the LIC transfer phases. Initial guesses assembled from these maps are passed to a direct collocation algorithm that corrects them in the BCR4BP while including the variable low-thrust acceleration of the spacecraft engine. Results indicate that the ordered motion provided by the BCR4BP and the robustness of direct collocation combine to offer an efficient and adaptable framework for designing a baseline trajectory for the LIC mission.