Ricerc@Sapienza

The purpose of this study is to identify orbits with quasi-constant orbital elements around a slowly rotating asteroid. To this end, a recurrence approach has been developed to formulate the high-order averaged disturbing potential. The order of the model can be determined based on the irregularity of the asteroid and the required accuracy. The proposed approach presents significant advantages in studying long-term behaviors around asteroids where the second degree and order gravity model fails or does not work well.

The lifetime of a probe moving at low altitude around Europa is strictly correlated, other than to the effects due to the interaction with Jupiter’s magnetic field, but also to the eccentricity variations of its orbit because of a possible collision with the lunar surface. Thus, the knowledge of such variations plays a key role in designing missions that provide remotely sensed images of this moon at high spatial resolution.