SEARCHING FOR "DISTANCE-STABLE" ORBITS FOR A SPACECRAFT TO OBSERVE THE TRIPLE ASTEROID 2001SN263

Resumo

Missions to asteroids are very popular in current space research, for many reasons. In the
scientific side, it is believed that some asteroids have information about the original cloud of particles
that formed the Solar System in the past. There are also commercial reasons, with a large interest in
exploring minerals from asteroids, and even planetary defense related studies, searching for
alternatives to avoid a collision of an asteroid with the Earth. The objective of the present paper is to
search for stable orbits to locate a spacecraft that has the goal of observing the triple system of
asteroids 2001SN263. This is a very interesting system and a very good candidate to receive a
spacecraft. Trajectories near the primary body, in the middle of the orbits of both smaller bodies of the
system and outside the orbit of the external satellite body are investigated. A new definition of
stability for the orbit is made, with a very practical goal, which is to keep the spacecraft-primary body
distance inside a given interval. We called this type of stability "Distance-Stability". Preferred orbits
are found in the three regions studied, and a physical explanation is made, based in the integral of the
accelerations received by the spacecraft.