# Chaos Control with Ion Propulsion

## TL;DR

This paper explores chaos control in the Sun-Earth-Moon system using ion propulsion, introducing modified chaos control methods and initial condition maps to improve spacecraft trajectory stability and transfer efficiency.

## Contribution

It presents a novel low-cost chaos control approach utilizing ion propulsion and initial condition maps for trajectory stabilization near L5.

## Key findings

- Identification of long-lived and fractal regions in initial condition maps.
- Successful transfer of trajectories between chaotic and regular regions.
- Enhanced efficiency in Earth-Moon transfer using the proposed method.

## Abstract

The escape dynamics around the triangular Lagrangian point L5 in the real Sun-Earth-Moon-Spacecraft system is investigated. Appearance of the finite time chaotic behaviour suggests that widely used methods and concepts of dynamical system theory can be useful in constructing a desired mission design. Existing chaos control methods are modified in such a way that we are able to protect a test particle from escape. We introduce initial condition maps in order to have a suitable numerical method to describe the motion in high dimensional phase space. Results show that the structure of initial condition maps can be split into two well-defined domains. One of these two parts has a regular contiguous shape and is responsible for long time escape; it is a long-lived island. The other one shows a filamentary fractal structure in initial condition maps. The short time escape is governed by this object. This study focuses on a low-cost method which successfully transfers a reference trajectory between these two regions using an appropriate continuous control force. A comparison of the Earth-Moon transfer is also presented to show the efficiency of our method.