Formation Flying and Relative Dynamics Under the Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem Formulation

Formation Flying can greatly answer some very complex mission goals at the cost of a quite challenging trajectory design and station keeping problem solving. For this reason formation flying is now one of the most frequently employed architecture for space missions and relative position and velocity requirements are becoming very important in the design process. The dynamical properties of a low-acceleration environment such as the vicinity of libration points associated to the Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem (CR3BP), can be effectively exploited to design spacecraft configurations able of satisfy relative position and velocity requirements. This work analyzes the effects of the three-body dynamics on a free uncontrolled formation of spacecraft. The three-body dynamical environment is then analyzed when some constraints are imposed to the relative dynamics of two co-operating spacecraft with the perspective of providing a useful and powerful tool to support refined mission analysis for future challenging missions to be designed.