Low-Energy Transfers to Lunar Distant Retrograde Orbits from Geostationary Transfer Orbits

This study focuses on the low-energy transfers to lunar distant retrograde orbits (DROs) from geostationary transfer orbits (GTOs) in the bicircular-restricted sun–Earth–moon four-body problem. The low-energy transfer is essential for low-cost small satellites reaching out to the Moon, and the departure from GTO allows more rideshare opportunities. We first created several large-scale databases of trajectory segments, such as GTO to apogee in the weak-stability area, apogee to perilune, and DRO to perilune. Then, millions of GTO–DRO transfer trajectories with double powered lunar flybys (PLFs) and weak stability boundary (WSB) ballistic transfer were constructed through trajectory patching. The key flight information, such as the ΔV–time-of-flight Pareto fronts, launch windows, and the flight mode via WSB ballistic transfer, is obtained from feasible solutions. Results show that low-energy GTO–DRO transfers can be achieved by exploiting PLFs and WSB ballistic arcs, which suggests potential applications in the cislunar space.