ISTS 2006-d-02 A DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS APPROACH TO THE DESIGN OF THE SCIENCE ORBIT AROUND EUROPA

The science orbit for a future mission to Europa requires low eccentricity, low altitude, and high inclination. How-ever, high inclination orbits around planetary satellites are unstable due to third-body perturbations. With-out control, the orbiter impacts Europa after few weeks. To minimize control, a tour over the stable-unstable, averaged manifolds of unstable frozen orbits has been suggested. We proceed with the unaveraged equations and study the manifolds of unstable orbits that are pe-riodic in a rotating frame attached to Europa. Massive numerical computation helps in understanding the un-stable dynamics close to Europa, and, thus, in select-ing long lifetime high inclination orbits. A final test of a selected set of initial conditions on a high fidelity, ephemeris model, validate the results. 1