Applied Maths Seminar: Kumar -- Mean motion resonant phenomena, orbits, and transfers in planet-moon systems

Bhanu Kumar (University of Michigan) will visit us and give a talk on Tuesday 7th
October in Carslaw 375 at 11am (note unusual day, time, location).  

Title: Mean motion resonant phenomena, orbits, and transfers in planet-moon systems 

Abstract: In this talk, I will discuss resonant orbits and the phenomenon of mean-motion
resonance overlapping, which generate natural heteroclinic, propellant-free pathways
that spacecraft can follow to change their semimajor axis.  This is useful for low-fuel
and/or low-energy space mission trajectory design.  I will start by describing some
recent related results from the Earth-Moon system, with applications to missions
throughout cislunar space.  Then, moving to the more complicated systems of the outer
planets, which have multiple moons, I will discuss secondary resonant phenomena which
occur inside the normally hyperbolic invariant manifolds formed by unstable mean motion
resonant orbit families.  The secondary resonances inside these manifolds are found to
overlap in some cases, resulting in a total change of structure for the more unstable
members of such families—precisely the orbits most useful for outer planet tour
design.