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Thrust is not an Option: How to get to Mars really slow

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Video duration
01:00:05
Language
English
Abstract
<p>In this talk we will see how chaos can be used to find very peculiar trajectories for space crafts within the Solar System. To understand this, we will also have a short look at the basics of orbital mechanics as well as three-body problems.</p>

<p>When traveling to Mars in a space craft, you want to find a compromise between flight duration and fuel consumption. One common trajectory for achieving this is the so-called Hohmann transfer which takes about 9 months from Earth and needs two maneuvers, both of which are accelerations!</p>

<p>Usually, when modeling movement of space crafts, one uses the Kepler model of two massive bodies attracting each other via gravitation. In case you have more time available for a space journey, however, you might consider a third body in your calculations. This introduces a very chaotic behavior, which you can use in turn to find very special trajectories that allow you to get to various places spending a lot less fuel. Unfortunately this will be much slower.</p>

<p>These special trajectories are called low-energy transfers and form a part of the so-called interplanetary transport network. There have been a handful of missions already using these trajectories, e.g. JAXA’s Hiten probe in 1990 and ESA’s BepiColombo which is en route to Mercury right now.</p>

<p>In this talk we will have a short introduction to the ever-surprising world of orbital mechanics followed by a discussion of the three-body problem including Lagrangian points. We will then see what the so-called weak stability boundary is and how chaos can help us understand why these strange trajectories exist. No math knowledge required!</p>

Talk ID
10918
Event:
36c3
Day
3
Room
Clarke
Start
5:30 p.m.
Duration
01:00:00
Track
Science
Type of
lecture
Speaker
sven
Talk Slug & media link
36c3-10918-thrust_is_not_an_option_how_to_get_to_mars_really_slow
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