Lifetime Extension of Ultra Low-Altitude Lunar Spacecraft with Low-Thrust Propulsion System

Due to the non-spherical perturbation of the Moon, the lifetime of ultra low-altitude Lunar spacecraft may be quite short. In this paper, we analyze the lifetime of about 50 km-altitude Lunar spacecraft with different initial orbit. The lifetime in low inclination orbits is much shorter than the ones in the near polar orbits. To extend the lifetime and keep the spacecraft in an appropriate range, an orbit maintenance strategy based on low-thrust propulsion system is proposed. The influence of the orbit initial conditions (e.g., semi-major axis, inclination, right ascension of the ascending node) on lifetime extension are discussed and the effect of the low-thrust magnitude in orbit maintenance is analyzed. According to the numerical simulation results, the lifetime of about 50 km-altitude 100 kg Lunar spacecraft with 10 kg fuel and 20 mN thruster can be extended from 7.958 days to over a 109.1725 days, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the strategy. Furthermore, a global perspective for ultra low-altitude Lunar spacecraft lifetime extension problem is provided in this paper, which can be applied to Moon mission designs extensively.