Connecting Earth and Moon via the L1 Lagrangian point

TL;DR

This paper develops an efficient method to compute low-cost transfer trajectories between Earth and Moon via the L1 Lagrangian point, enabling extended lunar missions with minimal fuel consumption.

Contribution

It introduces a novel methodology using the Theory of Functional Connections to efficiently simulate and optimize Earth-Moon transfers through invariant manifolds.

Findings

Successfully simulated tens of millions of transfer orbits.

Identified low-cost transfer trajectories involving gravity assists.

Enabled long-stationed stages at the L1 Lyapunov orbit for mission flexibility.

Abstract

The renewed global interest in lunar exploration requires new orbital strategies to ensure flight safety which can benefit extended lunar missions and service a plethora of planned instruments in the lunar orbit and surface. We investigate here the equivalent fuel consumption cost to transfer from (to) a given orbit and enter (leave) at any point of an invariant manifold associated with a Lyapunov orbit around the Earth-Moon $L_1$ Lagrangian point using bi-impulsive maneuvers. Whereas solving this type of transfer is generally computationally expensive, we simulate here tens of millions of transfers orbits, for different times of flight, Jacobi constants and spatial location on the manifold. We are able to reduce computational cost by taking advantage of the efficient procedure given by the Theory of Functional Connections for solving boundary value problems, represented with special constraints created to the purposes of this work. We develop here the methodology for constructing these transfers, and apply it to find a low-cost transfer from an orbit around the Earth to a stable manifold and another low-cost transfer from an unstable manifold to an orbit around the Moon. In the end, we obtain an innovative Earth-to-Moon transfer that involves a gravity assist maneuver with the Moon and allows a long stationed stage at the Lyapunov orbit around $L_1$ which can be used for designing multi-purpose missions for extended periods of time with low fuel costs. This is paramount to optimize new exploration concepts.