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Use of the tethered swingby maneuver to reach the Haumea dwarf planet

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Abstract

The asteroid tethered swingby maneuver (ATSM) is analyzed in this paper. The maneuver implies turn of the spacecraft velocity by means of a tether anchored to an asteroid. Mission to Haumea dwarf planet is considered. The following spacecraft transfer trajectories with launch in 2025 and 2027 are analyzed in the paper: Earth–Jupiter–Haumea and Earth–ATSM–Jupiter–Haumea. Only asteroids bigger than 40 km in diameter were considered in order to make hitting the asteroid by the tether anchor easier. Many Main Belt asteroids lowering total \(\Delta V\) of the transfers were found. A few of them giving the maximum effect of ATSM were selected and the transfers using them are analyzed in details. It is shown that the ATSM using these asteroids would lower substantially the total \(\Delta V\) or shorten significantly the time of flight. Technical problems of the ATSM implementation, such as possibly big mass of the tether and anchor, difficulty of hitting the asteroid and anchoring the tether securely etc., are considered. These problems would not allow to implement the ATSM at present time, but hopefully will be solved in near future.

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Notes

  1. This summation is not quite correct because the launch is performed by the kick stage and other impulses are produced by the onboard engine with different characteristics. Although the total \(\Delta V\) is the only parameter allowing estimate feasibility of the mission until the kick stage and onboard engine characteristics are unknown.

  2. Note that the spacecraft motion relatively to the asteroid is close to the rectilinear uniform motion for a relatively long time. This is why we can assume that \(v\) is constant during all the operations near asteroid.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the grants # 473387/2012-3, 473164/2013-2, 406841/2016-0 and 301338/2016-7 from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq); and grants # 2015/19880-6, 2016/24561-0 and 2016/14665-2 from São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP).

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  1. Space Research Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    Alexander Sukhanov

  2. National Institute for Space Research, São José dos Campos, Brazil

    Antonio Fernando Bertachini de Almeida Prado

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  1. Alexander Sukhanov
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  2. Antonio Fernando Bertachini de Almeida Prado
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Correspondence to Antonio Fernando Bertachini de Almeida Prado.

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Sukhanov, A., Prado, A.F.B.d.A. Use of the tethered swingby maneuver to reach the Haumea dwarf planet. Astrophys Space Sci 364, 2 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-018-3488-6

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