Edward Belbruno

Weak Stability Boundary and Invariant Manifolds

The concept of a weak stability boundary has been successfully used in the design of several fuel efficient space missions. In this paper we give a rigorous definition of the weak stability boundar...

Chaotic Exchange of Solid Material Between Planetary Systems: Implications for Lithopanspermia

We examined a low-energy mechanism for the transfer of meteoroids between two planetary systems embedded in a star cluster using quasi-parabolic orbits of minimal energy. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we found that the exchange of meteoroids could have been significantly more efficient than previously estimated. Our study is relevant to astrobiology, as it addresses whether life on Earth could have been transferred to other planetary systems in the Solar Systems birth cluster and whether life on Earth could have been transferred from beyond the Solar System. In the Solar System, the timescale over which solid material was delivered to the region from where it could be transferred via this mechanism likely extended to several hundred million years (as indicated by the 3.8-4.0 Ga epoch of the Late Heavy Bombardment). This timescale could have overlapped with the lifetime of the Solar birth cluster (∼100-500 Myr). Therefore, we conclude that lithopanspermia is an open possibility if life had an early start. Adopting parameters from the minimum mass solar nebula, considering a range of planetesimal size distributions derived from observations of asteroids and Kuiper Belt objects and theoretical coagulation models, and taking into account Oort Cloud formation models, we discerned that the expected number of bodies with mass>10 kg that could have been transferred between the Sun and its nearest cluster neighbor could be of the order of 10(14) to 3·10(16), with transfer timescales of tens of millions of years. We estimate that of the order of 3·10(8)·l (km) could potentially be life-bearing, where l is the depth of Earths crust in kilometers that was ejected as the result of the early bombardment.

Earth–Mars transfers with ballistic capture

We construct a new type of transfer from the Earth to Mars, which ends in ballistic capture. This results in substantial savings in capture

Optimization of Low-Energy Transfers

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Mars mission design and maximizing performance utilization

Δv from that of a classical Hohmann transfer under certain assumptions as well as an alternate way for spacecraft to transfer to Mars. This is accomplished by first becoming captured at Mars, very distant from the planet, and then from there, following a ballistic capture transfer to a desired altitude within a ballistic capture set. This is achieved by using stable sets, which are sets of initial conditions whose orbits satisfy a definition of orbital stability. This transfer type may be of interest for Mars missions because of low capture

Survey of Recent Results on Weak Stability Boundaries and Applications

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