COORBITAL RESTRICTED PROBLEM AND ITS APPLICATION IN THE DESIGN OF THE ORBITS OF THE LISA SPACECRAFT

Abstract

On the basis of many coorbital phenomena in astronomy and spacecraft motion, a dynamics model is proposed in this paper — treating the coorbital restricted problem together with method for obtaining a general approximate solution. The design of the LISA spacecraft orbits is a special 2+3 coorbital restricted problem. The problem is analyzed in two steps. First, the motion of the barycenter of the three spacecraft is analyzed, which is a planar coorbital restricted three-body problem. And an approximate analytical solution of the radius and the argument of the center is obtained consequently. Secondly, the configuration of the three spacecraft with minimum arm-length variation is analyzed. The motion of a single spacecraft is a near-planar coorbital restricted three-body problem, allowing approximate analytical solutions for the orbit radius and the argument of a spacecraft. Thus approximative expressions for the arm-length are given.