FROZEN ORBITS AROUND EUROPA

Low-altitude, near-polar orbits are very desirable for scientific missions to study the natural satellites of the planets of the Solar System, such as Europa, that is one of the natural satellites of Jupiter. the problem is analyzed considering that an artificial satellite is orbiting Europa and tha...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Carvalho, J. P. S. [UNIFESP], Mourao, D. C., Elipe, A., De Moraes, R. Vilhena [UNIFESP], Prado, A. F. B. A.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2012
País:Brasil
Institución:Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP)
Repositorio:Repositório Institucional da UNIFESP
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.unifesp.br:11600/35320
Acceso en línea:http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/S0218127412502409
http://repositorio.unifesp.br/handle/11600/35320
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Planetary satellites
artificial satellite
frozen orbits
orbital perturbations
Descripción
Sumario:Low-altitude, near-polar orbits are very desirable for scientific missions to study the natural satellites of the planets of the Solar System, such as Europa, that is one of the natural satellites of Jupiter. the problem is analyzed considering that an artificial satellite is orbiting Europa and that this spacecraft is perturbed by the nonuniform distribution of mass of the planetary satellite (J(2), J(3), C-22) and by the gravitational attraction of the third-body. We present an analytical theory using the averaged model and applications were done by performing numerical integrations of the analytical equations developed. Using the averaged method, several frozen orbits were obtained. Some of them has low inclination, low altitude and long lifetime. Numerical simulations are performed using the software Mercury, to compare the results obtained using the analytical theory.