Orbit Maintenance Strategy for Earth-Moon Halo Orbits

The L1 and L2 Near Rectilinear Halo Orbits (NRHOs) are proposed long horizon trajectories for cislunar exploration missions. Due to unmodeled forces as well as orbit determination errors in this dynamically sensitive region, the spacecraft deviates from the desired path. The current investigation focuses on an extended analysis of an impulsive stationkeeping technique to maintain the spacecraft near a long horizon virtual reference orbit. The dynamics in the halo orbit region are explored to identify suitable maneuver and target locations for stationkeeping. Furthermore, phasing constraints are incorporated to maintain spacecrafts on orbit where position and velocity states are sensitive to epoch time.