Asteroid Rendezvous Missions with Departure From Earth-Sun L4 and L5

The proposed paper considers CubeSats missions that start from the Earth-Sun triangular Lagrangian points L4 and L5 and have rendezvous with Near-Earth asteroids. CubeSats could be left at the departure point as a piggyback of a primary mission and start their own mission from this point. Departure from either L4 or L5 is favorable for missions to Near-Earth objects that have a close encounter with the Earth. With the use of electric propulsion, the spacecraft performs an Earth flyby about one or two years after departure, to move the CubeSat to the asteroid orbit and achieve rendezvous. An indirect optimization method is used to minimize propellant consumption. Results show the feasibility of this mission concept with the current technology for some cases, and the need for small improvements to enlarge the set of attainable targets.