Weak Stability Boundary Transfer to the Moon Launched Piggy-Back on Ariane 5 to GTO

Abstract

In cooperation with the German non-profit amateur satellite organisation (AMSAT-DL) the German Aerospace Center (DLR) came up with the idea to use AMSAT’s Earth satellite P3-D as baseline for a Moon mission. P3-D was cost savingly launched as auxiliary pay-load on Ariane V into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) and used its on-board pro-pulsion system in order to achieve a Molniya orbit. In this paper it is described how a simi-lar satellite can reach a 100 x 100 km lunar orbit with the same launch strategy. A delta-v saving transfer scenario using the Weak Stability Boundary (WSB) transfer was worked out to be feasible taking a P3-D like satellite bus into account. It contains phasing orbits as solution for the non-dedicated launch date and deals with the constraints of Ariane’s GTO. This approach opens up the opportunity to accomplish a low cost mission to the Moon with public and scientific value.