Low-thrust transfer trajectory planning and tracking in the Earth–Moon elliptic restricted three-body problem

In this work, the problem of low-thrust transfer between planar multi-revolution orbits at libration points near the secondary body in the Earth–Moon elliptic restricted three-body problem (ERTBP) is studied. Due to the presence of lunar orbital eccentricity, the ERTBP is closer to the real system than the circular restricted three-body problem (CRTBP). The stable and unstable invariant manifolds, associated with the libration point orbits in the CRTBP are used for the transfer trajectory planning. Different classes of heteroclinic connections are identified by the Poincaré section technique, which are used as initial trials for the calculation of energy-optimal low-thrust transfers. The trajectories are then switched to the ERTBP using continuous algorithms. We propose a computational strategy to match the non-autonomous dynamics of the ERTBP by coordinating the endpoints with the flight times of the transfer trajectories. Finally, a model predictive controller is designed for trajectory tracking in the real ephemeris that takes into account the actual lunar orbital eccentricity. The studies presented in this paper are more closely related to the requirements of practical lunar mission designs.