Premium
Background and Applications of Astrodynamics for Space Missions of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
Author(s) -
DUNHAM DAVID W.,
FARQUHAR ROBERT W.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1196/annals.1311.016
Subject(s) - space physics , space (punctuation) , aerospace engineering , astrobiology , physics , aeronautics , engineering physics , astronomy , computer science , engineering , operating system
A bstract : This paper describes astrodynamic techniques applied to develop special orbital designs for past and future space missions of the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) of Johns Hopkins University, and background about those techniques. The paper does not describe the long history of low Earth‐orbiting missions at APL, but rather concentrates on the astrodynamically more interesting high‐altitude and interplanetary missions that APL has undertaken in recent years. The authors developed many of their techniques in preparation for, and during, the Third International Sun‐Earth Explorer (ISEE‐3) halo orbit mission while they worked for the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) of NASA during the 1970s and 1980s. Later missions owed much to the ground breaking work of the trajectory designs for ISEE‐3 (later known as the International Cometary Explorer, or ICE). This experience, and other new ideas, were applied to the APL near Earth asteroid rendezvous (NEAR) and comet nucleus tour (CONTOUR) discovery missions, as well as to APL's future MESSENGER, STEREO, and New Horizons missions. These will be described in the paper.