TRAJECTORY DESIGN FOR KUIPER BELT MISSION USING MULTIPLE GRAVITY ASSISTS

The Kuiper belt is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, which consists mainly of small bodies or remnants originated from the beginning of the formation of the Solar System. While many asteroids are composed primarily of rocks and metals, most Kuiper belt objects are largely composed of frozen volatiles. These ancient materials could provide insights into the early history of the Solar System. In this study, a series of trajectories are designed for targets of Kuiper Belt missions using multiple gravity assists, departing from Earth between 2018 and 2050 based on the traditional flyby mission architecture. For fast missions, planetary gravity-assisted model associated with the differential evolution algorithm is used to design the trajectories to targets. For time-free exploration missions, based on the multiple gravity-assisted model and the global hybrid optimization algorithm, the multiple gravity-assisted trajectories to the targets of Kuiper belt missions are designed. The results of this paper can provide references to the trajectory design for Kuiper belt exploration in the future.