Transit-Orbit Search for Planar Restricted Three-Body Problems with Perturbations

A new class of trajectory search methods for the planar circular restricted three-body problem (CR3BP) with perturbations is presented. In the phase space of the CR3BP, there exist bundles of trajectories involving the transition from one region to another inside invariant manifolds of libration point orbits. Under the influence of perturbing forces, although these trajectory bundles can change their distributions and the locations, they still remain as orbit bundles for a considerable time in the phase space of the perturbed CR3BP. This paper presents a simple procedure of locating these orbit bundles directly in the CR3BP with perturbations. It is shown that by formulating the circular restricted problem of six bodies with the sun and the elliptical restricted problem of four bodies as perturbed CR3BP systems, the bundles of these solution orbits can be systematically and directly found on an arbitrarily chosen Poincare section.