ANALYSIS OF CISLUNAR TRANSFERS FROM A NEAR RECTILINEAR HALO ORBIT WITH HIGH POWER SOLAR ELECTRIC PROPULSION

This paper captures analysis completed in an effort to design efficient cislunar transfers of a massive spacecraft from an L2 Southern NRHO to a Distant Retrograde Orbit, L1 Northern NRHO, and Flat L2 Halo Orbit using low thrust Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP). For each transfer type, a reference transfer is designed for an assumed 39 t spacecraft with 26.6 kW SEP system. For each reference transfer, analysis is completed to understand the sensitivity of the transfer to changes in initial mass and SEP power and to identify the optimal number of thrusters to use for a given combination of mass and power. The outlined approach of characterizing a trajectory by the acceleration and required thrusting time is shown to be useful in understanding a wide range of mass and power combinations. In addition to showing the inverse relationship between spacecraft acceleration and propellant mass, the analysis shows that regions in the trade space exist where additional SEP power is not useful for reducing the required propellant. Further, regions are identified where operating more thrusters at a lower specific impulse requires less propellant than operating fewer at a higher specific impulse.