https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-023-01027-9
Regular Article
Low-cost Mars transfer from the Earth using solar sails and lunar swing-bys
1
Postgraduate Division, National Institute for Space Research, São José dos Campos, São Paulo, Brazil
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
3
Academy of Engineering, RUDN University, Miklukho-Maklaya Street 6, 117198, Moscow, Russia
Received:
12
May
2023
Accepted:
9
November
2023
Published online:
7
December
2023
As the current phase of space exploration is marked by a rapidly growing number of rocket launches and space missions, techniques that would enable interplanetary missions at lower costs would also provide a more sustainable and affordable environment for space research. This paper introduces a strategy that combines the use of solar sails and lunar swing-bys to decrease the required increments of velocity (
) to escape the Earth–Moon system to reach targets as far as Mars, in the Restricted Four-Body Sun–Earth–Moon–spacecraft Problem. Starting from a circular Low-Earth orbit, an increment of velocity (smaller than the one required to escape in a geocentric parabolic trajectory) is applied to the spacecraft and the solar sail is steered to maximize the gain of its orbital energy. This is done until the spacecraft performs a swing-by with the Moon. The use of this technique made it possible to reduce the by more than 
when compared to cases without the use of solar sails and lunar swing-bys.
Rebeca S. Ribeiro, Cristiano F. de Melo and Antonio F. B. A. Prado authors contributed equally to this work.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
