Recovery of halo orbit missions in case of contingent station-keeping maneuver delay

This paper investigates a recovery strategy for halo orbit missions in case of contingent station-keeping maneuver delay. It is assumed that (1) the delay is temporal, and the spacecraft control becomes available after the delay, (2) the thruster is not producing thrust during the delay. The idea behind the recovery strategy is to deliver the spacecraft into the “cheapest-to-get” halo orbit rather than into the reference one. This approach reduces the transfer costs and saves fuel that can be used for future station-keeping maneuvers, thereby increasing the mission lifetime. Monte Carlo trials are used to estimate the savings and their scattering for each delay time. Families of halo orbits around the Sun-Earth L1/L2 points and the Earth-Moon L1/L2 points are considered.