Surfing the phase space of Earth’s oblateness and third body perturbations

In this work, we exploit the luni-solar perturbations for the post-mission disposal of satellites in high-altitude orbits. Starting from the double-averaged dynamical system, the representation of the dynamics is reduced to a one degree-of-freedom Hamiltonian, depending on the orbit eccentricity and the perigee orientation in the equatorial frame. An analytical method is proposed for designing the disposal maneuver with the goal to achieve natural re-entry by exploiting the long-term effect of the natural perturbations, enhanced by impulsive maneuvers. The optimal initial conditions to apply the impulsive maneuver, such that a fast re-entry is achieved, are selected via a gradient based method in the phase space.