Stability of orbits near the triple system Haumea

Abstract

Space missions to small bodies of the Solar System provide important information about the system studied and the formation of the Solar System itself. We propose the study of missions to the Dwarf Planet Haumea (an object studied extensively at this time, making it an interesting target to current studies), considered as a binary, when we take into account Haumea and Namaka, and as a triple system, when we consider Haumea, Namaka, and Hi'iaka (Namaka and Hi'iaka are moons of Haumea). The comparison of the stability of periodic orbits of the two models is very interesting from the dynamical point of view, and can reveal unexpected behavior of a spacecraft around this system. We also study non-periodic orbits that close at some point and that could become periodic by applying an impulse at the point where it closes, in order to place the spacecraft back into the previous orbit. The representation of periodic and quasi-periodic orbits using higher-dimensional Poincaré maps will be made. Furthermore, we want to measure, through long period numerical integrations, the life time of small spacecraft around this system. This type of study can be easily adapted for double or triple asteroids, like the one planned for the ASTER mission currently under study in Brazil.