Orbit Plane Rotation Using Aerocapture

This study investigates the feasibility of performing orbit plane rotations during aerocapture maneuvers. Three-degrees-of-freedom bounding trajectories at Mars are propagated for a range of vehicle lift-to-drag ratios [Formula: see text] and hyperbolic arrival velocities [Formula: see text]. The results show that the maximum plane rotation achievable increases with vehicle [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]. When arriving with [Formula: see text] of 6 km/s, vehicles with [Formula: see text] of 0.25 and 1.0 can achieve plane rotations of up to 11.6 and 45.3 deg, respectively. Heat rate, heat load, and g-loading constraints identified when rotating the orbital plane are not more severe than those observed for two-dimensional aerocapture at a given [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]. A direct tradeoff between the maximum plane rotation and entry corridor width exists that will affect the ability of lower [Formula: see text] vehicles to achieve large plane rotations. The proposed maneuver can allow the captured orbit inclination and right ascension of the ascending node to be altered in ways that are not possible using typical interplanetary orbit targeting methods. Further, the maneuver offers the possibility of deploying multiple satellites to different orbits around a target destination using a single launch or approach path.