Low-energy trajectory from earth to moon for low-thrust spacecraft

This article deals with the trajectory from Earth to Moon based on the low thrust, and attempts to expose the mechanism of low-thrust transfer in the frame of restricted four body problem. The article emphasizes the constructions for the low-energy transfer trajectories: the minimum energy cislunar transfer is acquired by the trajectory transiting LL₁, and the (M, N)-loopy transiting trajectories are achieved by transiting the Halo orbit around LL₁. Thus one of (2, 2) loopy transiting trajectories is chosen as the free flight trajectory, which has more one option attained by Halo orbit than the transiting trajectory gained by LL₁. In the escaping phase from Earth and the capturing phase by Moon, the simple control laws and on/off-schedules for the-engine-of the low-thrust are proposed to accelerate and decelerate the spacecraft near the Earth's and Moon's gravitation traps respectively. In despite of no performance on the optimization for the trajectories, the results in the fuel consumptions are consistent with SMART-1 for the similar boundary conditions.