Mission Analysis for the HENON CubeSat Mission to a Large Sun-Earth Distant Retrograde Orbit

TL;DR

The paper analyzes the mission design for HENON, a CubeSat aiming to operate in a distant retrograde orbit for space weather monitoring, demonstrating deep space electric propulsion and trajectory planning.

Contribution

It presents the mission analysis and baseline transfer trajectory design for HENON, showcasing a novel electric propulsion approach for deep space CubeSat missions.

Findings

HENON can reach the target orbit in about one year with current assumptions.

The mission demonstrates deep space electric propulsion capabilities.

A feasible transfer trajectory leveraging rideshare opportunities is proposed.

Abstract

The HEliospheric pioNeer for sOlar and interplanetary threats defeNce (HENON) mission is a CubeSat Space Weather mission, designed to operate in a Sun-Earth Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO) at more than 10 million km from Earth. HENON will embark payloads tailored for Space Weather (SWE) observations: a high-resolution energetic particle radiation monitor, a Faraday cup, and a magnetometer, enabling quasi-real-time monitoring of interplanetary conditions in deep space. HENON has multiple objectives, such as demonstrating CubeSat capabilities in deep space, including long-duration electric propulsion with periodic telemetry and command, and robust attitude control for deep-space operations. It will pave the way for a future fleet of spacecraft on DROs, providing continuous near real-time measurements for SWE forecasting. This paper focuses on the mission analysis performed for phases A and B, with the main goal of defining a baseline transfer trajectory to a heliocentric DRO in co-orbital motion with Earth. The proposed transfer leverages a rideshare opportunity on a mission escaping Earth gravity field, most likely one headed toward the Sun-Earth L2 region, and relies exclusively on on-board electric propulsion to reach deep space, making it a pioneering demonstration of this approach and the technology. Under appropriate assumptions on the electric propulsion system performance, spacecraft mass, and propellant budget, it is shown that the HENON target DRO can be reached in about one year, accounting also for periodic interruptions of thrusting to allow for telemetry, tracking, and command.