The Earth-Moon neighborhood is the scene of a large variety of applications that concern asteroids, lunar exploration and space debris in Earth orbit. In particular, recent efforts by the scientific community have focused on the possibility of extending the human operations beyond the radiation belts; of exploiting in-situ resources, either on the lunar surface or on asteroids retrieved to the vicinity of the Earth; and of mitigating the space debris concern by taking advantage of the lunar perturbation. The characteristic dynamics in the cislunar space represents an opportunity for the mission designer, but also a challenge in terms of theoretical understanding and operational control. This Research Topic covers the Earth-Moon dynamics in its complexity and allure, considering the most relevant aspects for both natural and artificial objects, in order to get a new comprehension of the dynamics at stake along with the operational procedures that can handle it.

This book considers global solutions to the restricted three-body problem from a geometric point of view. The authors seek dynamical channels in the phase space which wind around the planets and moons and naturally connect them. These low energy passageways could slash the amount of fuel spacecraft need to explore and develop our solar system. In order to effectively exploit these passageways, the book addresses the global transport. It goes beyond the traditional scope of libration point mission design, developing tools for the design of trajectories which take full advantage of natural three or more body dynamics, thereby saving precious fuel and gaining flexibility in mission planning. This is the key for the development of some NASA mission trajectories, such as low energy libration point orbit missions (e.g., the sample return Genesis Discovery Mission), low energy lunar missions and low energy tours of outer planet moon systems, such as a mission to tour and explore in detail the icy moons of Jupiter. This book can serve as a valuable resource for graduate students and advanced undergraduates in applied mathematics and aerospace engineering, as well as a manual for practitioners who work on libration point and deep space missions in industry and at government laboratories. the authors include a wealth of background material, but also bring the reader up to a portion of the research frontier.

Contains 250 questions and answers about astronomy, particular for the amateur astronomer.

The Solar System is a complex and fascinating dynamical system. This is the first textbook to describe comprehensively the dynamical features of the Solar System and to provide students with all the mathematical tools and physical models they need to understand how it works. It is a benchmark publication in the field of planetary dynamics and destined to become a classic. Clearly written and well illustrated, Solar System Dynamics shows how a basic knowledge of the two- and three-body problems and perturbation theory can be combined to understand features as diverse as the tidal heating of Jupiter's moon Io, the origin of the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt, and the radial structure of Saturn's rings. Problems at the end of each chapter and a free Internet Mathematica® software package are provided. Solar System Dynamics provides an authoritative textbook for courses on planetary dynamics and celestial mechanics. It also equips students with the mathematical tools to tackle broader courses on dynamics, dynamical systems, applications of chaos theory and non-linear dynamics.

The only work to date to collect data gathered during the American and Soviet missions in an accessible and complete reference of current scientific and technical information about the Moon.

A comprehensive graduate-level textbook on classical dynamics with many worked examples and over 200 homework exercises, first published in 1998.