Stable ballistic prograde cyclers in the three-body problem

We report the first continuous families of stable, ballistic, prograde cycler orbits in the circular restricted three-body problem: periodic trajectories that alternately undergo temporary capture and orbit each primary. We construct continuous families of symmetric cyclers from intersections of the stable and unstable manifold tubes of the $L_1$ Lyapunov orbit and exhibit stable examples across more than two orders of magnitude in mass ratio, from the Sun--Jupiter regime to the equal-mass limit. Linear stability separates naturally into planar and out-of-plane components. A planar-stable branch of every computed family is created simultaneously with a hyperbolic branch in a saddle-center bifurcation of the return map at the family's maximal Jacobi constant, while out-of-plane instability occurs only through isolated parametric resonances. Every computed family contains a subfamily that is linearly stable to both planar and out-of-plane perturbations. These stable cyclers persist into the full three-body problem for sufficiently small third mass. We conjecture that saddle-center birth is universal among cycler families, suggesting that stable cyclers are a generic feature of three-body dynamics.

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Publication Details

Journal
Physical review. E
Published
2026-11-03
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1103/6jy8-bls1
Primary Topic
Spacecraft Dynamics and Control
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Stable ballistic prograde cyclers in the three-body problem

Shane Ross, Michael Roberts-Tsoukkas
Physical review. E
Spacecraft Dynamics and Control
article

Stable ballistic prograde cyclers in the three-body problem

Shane Ross, Michael Roberts-Tsoukkas
article en

Abstract

We report the first continuous families of stable, ballistic, prograde cycler orbits in the circular restricted three-body problem: periodic trajectories that alternately undergo temporary capture and orbit each primary. We construct continuous families of symmetric cyclers from intersections of the stable and unstable manifold tubes of the $L_1$ Lyapunov orbit and exhibit stable examples across more than two orders of magnitude in mass ratio, from the Sun--Jupiter regime to the equal-mass limit. Linear stability separates naturally into planar and out-of-plane components. A planar-stable branch of every computed family is created simultaneously with a hyperbolic branch in a saddle-center bifurcation of the return map at the family's maximal Jacobi constant, while out-of-plane instability occurs only through isolated parametric resonances. Every computed family contains a subfamily that is linearly stable to both planar and out-of-plane perturbations. These stable cyclers persist into the full three-body problem for sufficiently small third mass. We conjecture that saddle-center birth is universal among cycler families, suggesting that stable cyclers are a generic feature of three-body dynamics.

Physical review. E
Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Openalex Percentile: Top 61%
Spacecraft Dynamics and Control
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Stable ballistic prograde cyclers in the three-body problem — Shane Ross, Michael Roberts-Tsoukkas · Physical review. E (2026) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS