Abstract Measurements of Earth’s atmosphere as it occults sunlight can be obtained advantageously from a spacecraft placed in the proximity of the Sun-Earth Lagrange point ℒ2. Maintaining the condition of continuous solar occultation by all parts of the atmospheric disk requires that the displacement of the spacecraft perpendicular to the Sun-Earth line remains less than 200 km. However, the gravitational force exerted by the Earth’s moon must be negated by propulsion in order to meet this rather tight constraint. We provide an estimate of propulsive force needed to keep the spacecraft coincident with ℒ2, as well as estimates of velocity increments needed to maintain various trajectories in the close vicinity of ℒ2.
Keeping a Spacecraft on the Sun-Earth Line
2005
Article (Journal)
English
Keeping a Spacecraft on the Sun-Earth Line
Online Contents | 2005
|Keeping a Spacecraft on the Sun-Earth Line
NTIS | 2005
|Keeping a Spacecraft on the Sun-Earth Line
Springer Verlag | 2005
|Keeping a Spacecraft on the Sun-Earth Line
NTRS | 2005
|Keeping a Spacecraft on the Sun-Earth Line (AAS 04-246)
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2005
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