Usually high specific propulsion of not less than 3,000 sec. can be achieved from electric propulsion such as ion engines, and this can be utilized to substantially decrease the fuel/weight ratio of space vehicles. In case of flight from low earth orbit to low lunar orbit, for example, fuel/weight ratio of space vehicle is about 20 percent with ion engines, as compared to about 80 percent with conventional chemical engines. Use of ion engines with high specific propulsion is largely beneficial for lunar and planetary expedition vehicles, as smaller space vehicles can be utilized for those missions. This report presents consideration to achieve feasible flight path with low propulsion acceleration with ion engines and methods to obtain such flight path. Numerical calculations for the flight path are also presented.
低推力推進と重力捕捉による月飛行経路の検討
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