Coupled Orbit-Attitude Periodic Motion in the Earth-Moon System With Solar Radiation Pressure Torque

Growing interest in lunar missions drives the need for low-propellant missions to extend spacecraft life and mission duration. Propellant resupply in cislunar space is challenging, and carrying excess fuel penalizes payload mass. Nevertheless, station-keeping is necessary to maintain orbits in this chaotic dynamical region, and attitude management is another significant driver of propellant consumption. Decreasing the demand on the attitude control system will not only reduce propellant consumption but also increase the lifetime of failure-prone devices, such as reaction wheels. Conserved propellant can then be allocated for station-keeping and increasing mission life. Naturally periodic motion can reduce the demand for station-keeping and attitude corrections. This paper expands existing research on Earth-Moon coupled orbit-attitude periodic motion by including the next largest perturbation on attitude motion: solar radiation pressure (SRP) torque. Methodologies to search for, correct, and build families of periodic solutions are proposed.