Powered swing-by in the elliptic restricted three-body problem

In this paper, the powered swing-by is investigated in the planar elliptic restricted three-body problem. A calculation method of the energy variation for the one-impulse powered swing-by is proposed. The comparison with the result of numerical integration verifies the feasibility of our method. Influences of three categories of parameters are numerically analysed. The optimization of the one-impulse powered swing-by is implemented and discussed. Then, we extend the calculation method to the two-impulse case, and propose an optimization method for the two-impulse powered swing-by correspondingly. Based on numerical results, we find that in the Earth-Moon system, the optimal strategy for two-impulse orbits with larger and smaller impulsive manoeuvres is different. For a larger manoeuvre, two impulsive manoeuvres should be performed separately, and can obtain a larger energy gain or loss than the oneimpulse powered swing-by. For a smaller manoeuvre, two impulses should be merged into one, and conducted at the entering point of the neighbourhood around the Moon. Finally, two applications of the powered swing-by in the interplanetary mission are demonstrated.