Circular Orbit Flip Trajectories Generated by E-Sail

Chaos from orbit-flip homoclinic orbits generated in a practical circuit.

A new class of chaotic systems is generated in a practical, nonlinear, mutually coupled phase-locked loop (PLL) circuit. Theoretical results make it possible to understand experimental results of such PLL's on the onset of chaos using the geometry of the invariant manifolds, while the resultant simple geometry and complex dynamics is expected to have applications in other areas, e.g. , power sy...

Displaced Geostationary Orbit Design Using Hybrid Sail Propulsion

Due to an increase in number of geostationary spacecraft and limits imposed by east-west spacing requirements, the geostationary orbit is becoming congested. To increase its capacity, this paper proposes to create new geostationary slots by displacing the geostationary orbit either out of or in the equatorial plane by means of hybrid solar sail and solar electric propulsion. To minimize propell...

Orbit Growth for Algebraic Flip Systems

An algebraic flip system is an action of the infinite dihedral group by automorphisms of a compact abelian group X. In this paper, a fundamental structure theorem is established for irreducible algebraic flip sytems, that is, systems for which the only closed invariant subgroups of X are finite. Using irreducible systems as a foundation, for expansive algebraic flip systems, periodic point coun...

Low-Thrust to Solar-Sail Trajectories: A Homotopic Approach

Solar Sail Near-Optimal Circular Transfers with Plane Change

Near-minimum time interplanetary trajectories between circular orbits with different orbital planes are investigated. By assumption, the mission is carried out with a solar sail spacecraft, whose performance takes into account the optical characteristics of the sail film and the maximum temperature constraint. In an effort to obtain a general, albeit approximate, solution, the problem is tackle...