AAS 96-139

FROZEN ORBITS FOR THE ZONAL MOON POTENTIAL

A. Elipe, V. Lanchares, and M. Lara, Universidad de Zaragoza

Abstract

In this communication, we address the problem of finding families of frozen orbits for the zonal gravity field of the Moon. We approach the problem in two different ways: 1) by averaging the equations of motion and 'painting' the Hamiltonian, we find the equilibria of the averaged Hamiltonian. 2) By numerical continuation of natural families of periodic orbits in the non-averaged problem. Both techniques provide similar results. Since the magnitude of the zonal harmonic J7 is similar to J2, families obtained for the Moon present some differences with respect to previous works done for an Earth-like planet.