Five Special Types of Orbits Around Mars

TL;DR

This paper analyzes five special orbit types around Mars, comparing their characteristics with Earth counterparts using analytical and numerical methods to improve mission design and reduce stationkeeping needs.

Contribution

It extends the understanding of special orbits from Earth to Mars, incorporating Mars' complex gravity field and employing advanced numerical optimization for orbit design.

Findings

Martian orbits differ from Earth's due to gravity field complexity.

Numerical methods improve orbit design accuracy.

Potential to reduce stationkeeping for Mars missions.

Abstract

The abstract is additional with repect to the paper published in JGCD. Ordinary Earth satellites are usually placed into five categories of special orbits: sun-synchronous orbits, orbits at the critical inclination, frozen orbits, repeating ground track orbits, and geostationary orbits. This paper investigates their counterparts around Mars and examines the basic nature of these orbits, which are of special interest for missions conducted around Mars, including Mars reconnaissance. Mars' gravity field is much more complicated, with relatively smaller J2, compared to Earth's, which makes the behaviors of these Martian orbits different from those of Earth. Analytical formulations and numerical simulations are used to analyze these Martian orbits and compare them with their Earth counterparts. First, mean element theory is employed to describe variations of orbital elements and give the constraint conditions for achieving these special orbits. Then, numerical verifications based on the PSODE algorithm (particle swarm optimization combined with differential evolution) are adopted to provide more accurate conditions for achieving these orbits when considering an Mars gravity field. Using the numerical method can significantly improve the design in the full gravity field, and it is therefore possible to select these usable orbits for Mars that can reduce or eliminate the need for stationkeeping.