Title:
Strategic Planning of Abort Trajectories for Manned
Lunar Missions
Strategic Planning of Abort Trajectories for Manned
Lunar Missions
Author(s)
Yuricich, Jillian
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Abstract
A resurgence in manned lunar missions is on the horizon with private space companies
and nation states alike competing to be the first to return to the Moon since the Apollo
program ended in 1972. Technology and mission planning abilities have expanded im mensely in the almost half century of time that has elapsed since Apollo 11 first landed on
the Moon. It is therefore necessary to evaluate and update how abort procedures should
be strategized given the increase in volume of crewed missions planned for the Moon and
beyond. This research seeks to investigate three abort strategies for space vehicles in or bit around the Moon and provide a high-level road map of options based on their fuel
costs and time of flight to return to the Earth. By investigating previous historic works in
combination with more recent research, this paper intends to capitalize on previous math ematical derivations and combine multiple abort strategies into a coherent simulation tool.
It is expected that given the nominal trajectory of a circular lunar orbit, a specific abort
strategy with options ranging from single to triple-impulse requirements can be selected as
the optimal trajectory for a return to Earth. This research provides a high-level road map
of contingency plans and fills a gap in understanding abort strategies from lunar orbit.
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Date Issued
2018-05-01
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Resource Type
Text
Resource Subtype
Masters Project
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