Aas 18-406 earth-moon near rectilinear halo and butterfly orbits for lunar surface exploration

NASA is planning the next phase of crewed spaceflight with a set of missions designed to establish a human-tended presence beyond low Earth orbit. The current investigation focuses on the staging post potential of cislunar infrastructure by seeking to maximize performance capabilities by optimizing transits in the lunar vicinity for both crewed and robotic spacecraft. In this paper, the current reference orbit for the cislunar architecture, known as a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO), is examined alongside the bifurcated L2 butterfly family for their use as a staging location to the lunar surface.