Adam Hibberd
I’ve been working on the ‘Mars Cycler’, a problem which is normally addressed by assuming the Earth and Mars are in circular, coplanar orbits.
However, I’ve been wondering: ‘What happens in the real case, where Mars has a slight inclination to the Earth’s ecliptic plane, and in fact both Earth and Mars follow slightly elliptical paths?’
Well the answer is that a spacecraft must then use propellant to ensure the Mars Cycler is maintained. But how much propellant?
I can quantify this in terms of DeltaV, using some software (based on OITS) I have developed in C++ expressly for this purpose, the problem being that you need a long string of Earth/Mars encounters to get a good handle of what is happening.
Look at the attached plot which starts in May 2029 and has 13 consecutive encounters. It provides a cumulative DeltaV as the spacecraft visits each planet in turn.
By the way, you might want to see a Mars Cycler at work on my YouTube Channel here: