Averaging analyses for spacecraft orbital motions around asteroids

This paper summarizes a few cases of spacecraft orbital motion around asteroid for which averaging method can be applied, i.e., when central body rotates slowly, fast, and when a spacecraft is near to the resonant orbits between the spacecraft mean motion and the central body's rotation. Averaging conditions for these cases are given. As a major extension, a few classes of near resonant orbits are analyzed by the averaging method. Then some resulted conclusions of these averaging analyses are applied to understand the stability regions in a numerical experiment. Some stability conclusions are obtained. As a typical example, it is shown in detail that near circular 1:2 resonant orbit is always unstable.