Singularities in Dromo formulation. Analysis of deep flybys Articles uri icon

publication date

  • August 2015

start page

  • 569

end page

  • 581

issue

  • 3

volume

  • 56

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0273-1177

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1879-1948

abstract

  • The singularities in Dromo are characterized in this paper, both from an analytical and a numerical perspective. When the angular momentum vanishes, Dromo may encounter a singularity in the evolution equations. The cancellation of the angular momentum occurs in very specific situations and may be caused by the action of strong perturbations. The gravitational attraction of a perturbing planet may lead to rapid changes in the angular momentum of the particle. In practice, this situation may be encountered during deep planetocentric flybys. The performance of Dromo is evaluated in different scenarios. First, Dromo is validated for integrating the orbit of Near Earth Asteroids. Resulting errors are of the order of the diameter of the asteroid. Second, a set of theoretical flybys are designed for analyzing the performance of the formulation in the vicinity of the singularity. New sets of Dromo variables are proposed in order to minimize the dependency of Dromo on the angular momentum. A slower time scale is introduced, leading to a more stable description of the flyby phase. Improvements in the overall performance of the algorithm are observed when integrating orbits close to the singularity. (C) 2015 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.