Energy Transition Domain and Its Application in Constructing Gravity-Assist Escape Trajectories

Abstract: This Note proposes the concept and theory of energy transition domain (ETD) defined by the mechanical energy of spacecraft in the Earth-Moon planar circular restricted three-body problem (PCR3BP) inspired by the pioneering work from Ano{`e} et al. (2024) on the ETD defined by the two-body energy with respect to the secordary body in the PCR3BP. An effective construction method of gravity-assist escape trajectories is then proposed. Firstly, the concept of the ETD defined by the mechanical energy is presented, and its dependency on the Jacobi energy is analyzed. This dependency may provide prior knowledge about selecting the range of the Jacobi energy in the construction of escape trajectories. Then, gravity-assist escape trajectories departing from the 167 km low Earth orbit and 36000 km geosynchronous Earth orbit are constructed based on the ETD. The initial states are selected in the sphere of influence of the Moon, and the trajectories are searched from the forward and backward integration. Finally, the obtained solutions are presented and analyzed.