On the existence of the relative equilibria of a rigid body in the J2 problem

TL;DR

This paper investigates the existence and properties of classical and non-classical relative equilibria of a rigid body in a J2 gravity field, considering orbit-rotation coupling and central body oblateness, with detailed bifurcation analysis.

Contribution

It extends previous work by analyzing the influence of J2 oblateness and orbit-rotation coupling on relative equilibria, providing detailed conditions and bifurcation insights.

Findings

Classical relative equilibria always exist in physical situations.

Non-classical equilibria only exist for negative J2 (elongated central bodies).

Orbit-rotation coupling affects the existence of non-classical equilibria depending on parameters.

Abstract

The motion of a point mass in the J2 problem has been generalized to that of a rigid body in a J2 gravity field for new high-precision applications in the celestial mechanics and astrodynamics. Unlike the original J2 problem, the gravitational orbit-rotation coupling of the rigid body is considered in the generalized problem. The existence and properties of both the classical and non-classical relative equilibria of the rigid body are investigated in more details in the present paper based on our previous results. We nondimensionalize the system by the characteristic time and length to make the study more general. Through the study, it is found that the classical relative equilibria can always exist in the real physical situation. Numerical results suggest that the non-classical relative equilibria only can exist in the case of a negative J2, i.e., the central body is elongated; they cannot exist in the case of a positive J2 when the central body is oblate. In the case of a negative J2, the effect of the orbit-rotation coupling of the rigid body on the existence of the non-classical relative equilibria can be positive or negative, which depends on the values of J2 and the angular velocity. The bifurcation from the classical relative equilibria, at which the non-classical relative equilibria appear, has been shown with different parameters of the system. Our results here have given more details of the relative equilibria than our previous paper, in which the existence conditions of the relative equilibria are derived and primarily studied. Our results have also extended the previous results on the relative equilibria of a rigid body in a central gravity field by taking into account the oblateness of the central body.