421 Low Energy Transfer Trajectories of a Spacecraft from the Earth to the Moon

Abstract

We consider a problem of constructing a spacecraft transfer trajectory with low cost and moderate flight time from the Earth to the Moon. We adopt as the spacecraft model the planar circular restricted three-body problem or its perturbation due to the solar gravitation, and reduce computation of optimal transfers to a nonlinear boundary value problem. Using a computer software called AUTO, we solve it and continue its solutions numerically to obtain the optimal transfers. Especially, we find a transfer trajectory having about 15% lower cost, compared to the traditional Hohmann transfer.