Analysis on Frozen & Sun-synchronous Orbit Conditions at the Moon

Frozen orbit concept is very useful in designing particular mission orbits including the Sun-synchronous and minimum altitude variation orbits. In this work, variety of frozen and Sun-synchronous orbit conditions around the Moon is investigated and analyzed. The first two zonal harmonics of the Moon, J2 and J3, are considered to determine mean orbital elements to be a frozen orbit. To check the long-term behavior of a frozen orbit, formerly developed YonSei Precise Lunar Orbit Propagator (YSPLOP) is used. First, frozen orbit solutions without conditions to be the Sun-synchronous orbit is investigated. Various mean semi-major axes having between ranges from 1,788 km to 1,938 km with inclinations from 30 deg to 150 deg are considered. It is found that a polar orbit (90 deg of inclination) having 100 km of altitude requires the orbital eccentricity of about 0.01975 for a frozen orbit. Also, mean apolune and perilune altitudes for this case is about 136.301 km and 63.694 km, respectively. Second, frozen orbit solutions with additional condition to be the Sun-synchronous orbit is investigated. It is discovered that orbital inclinations are increased from 138.223 deg to 171.553 deg when mean altitude ranged from 50 km to 200 km. For the most usual mission altitude at the Moon (100 km), the Sun-synchronous orbit condition is satisfied with the eccentricity of 0.01124 and 145.235 deg of inclination. For this case, mean apolune and perilune altitudes are found to be about 120.677 km and 79.323 km, respectively. The results analyzed in this work could be useful to design a preliminary mapping orbit as well as to estimate basic on-board payloads' system requirements, for a future Korea's lunar orbiter mission. Other detailed perturbative effects should be considered in the further study, to analyze more accurate frozen orbit conditions at the Moon.