Low Energy Flight: Orbital Dynamics and Mission Trajectory Design

Jian-ping Yuan received the B.S. and Ph.D.degrees from Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China, in 1982 and 1985, respectively. He is currently a Professor in the School of Astronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University. His research interests are spacecraft flight dynamics and control.

Yu Cheng

Research topic: transfer trajectory design in the three-body problem; relative dynamics of a charged spacecraft under a magnetic field and the potential application in formation flying, stability analysis of the critical points and periodic orbits of the Hamiltonian system, and computation of invariant tori using parameterization method.

Jinglang Feng

Research topic: orbital dynamics around irregular gravitational field, e.g. contact binary asteroid systems, in terms of equilibrium points, periodic orbits and their stability, resonant dynamics, etc. Moreover, the perturbation of solar radiation pressure on the secular dynamics of orbital motion around asteroid are also investigated for mission analysis.

Chong Sun

Research topic: continuous low thrust trajectory design and optimization, including the solar sail low thrust trajectory design, the solar electrical propulsion low thrust trajectory design, and hybrid low thrust trajectory design and its application. For example, the near earth asteroid exploration, the period orbit mission in three body system.