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A permanent magnet hall thruster for pulsed orbit control of lunar polar satellites

Abstract

Future Moon missions devoted to Lunar surface remote sensing, for example, will require very _ne and accurate orbit control. It is well known that Lunar satellites in polar orbits will su_er a high increase on the eccentricity due to the gravitational perturbation of the Earth. Without proper orbit correction the satellite lifetime will decrease and end up in a collision with the Moon surface. It is pointed out by many authors that this e_ect is a natural consequence of the Lidov-Kozai resonance. We studied di_erent arcs of active lunar satellite propulsion, centered on the orbit apoapsis or periapsis, in order to be able to introduce a correction of the eccentricity at each cycle. The proposed method is based on an approach intended to keep the orbital eccentricity of the satellite at low values

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