Trajectory Design for a Europa Orbitter Mission: A Plethora of Astrodynamic Challenges

The icy moon of Europa is a hot topic in planetary exploration. This paper discusses the trajectory design of a Europa orbiter mission intended to find out if Europa is a possible habitat for extraterrestrial life. Getting into orbit at Europa is difficult; the simplest trajectory design (a direct Hohmann-type transfer to Jupiter followed by an immediate insertion into orbit at Europa) requires more than 5.5 km/s of velocity change capability by the spacecraft. This paper describes a number of trajectory design techniques which can reduce this AV requirement step by step down to around 2.5 km/s. The variety ot’ trajectory “tricks” involved make this mission a showcase of rnoclern trajectory design.