Fast Design and Optimization of Low Energy Moon Return Orbit via STK/Astrogator

Abstract

In this paper the fast design and optimization of low energy Moon return orbit is realized with STK/Astrogator. With the analysis of the dynamical characteristics of the low energy return orbit, the return orbit is divided into two phases and a bi-directional integral searching method is proposed. To carry out the searching and optimization process, the STK/Astrogator module is applied to build the simulation environment. The calculation result shows that the low energy Moon return orbit can be designed and optimized efficiently and automatically with the STK/Astrogator module and the searching method proposed.