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Howard et al. 2002
Howard, J.E., Wilkerson, T.D. and Cantrell, J.N. (2002). Orbital dynamics about a slowly rotating asteroid. Geophysical Research Letters 29: doi: 10.1029/2001GL014374. issn: 0094-8276.

We analyze orbital stability of satellites (moonlet, spacecraft) near a slowly rotating axisymmetric asteroid. Using simple point mass models as a guide, we discover an unstable region near the equatorial plane of an indented asteroid. The existence of stable/unstable regions is confirmed numerically for a realistic peanut model asteroid. The stable region is found to survive small asteroidal rotation about an axis of maximum moment of inertia. A simple semi-empirical formula is found for the orbital tilt angle as a function of asteroid rotation speed. Implications for motion about realistic asteroids are discussed.

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Abstract

Keywords
Planetology, Comets and Small Bodies, Gravitational fields, Planetology, Comets and Small Bodies, Orbital and rotational dynamics, Planetology, Solar System Objects, Asteroids and meteoroids
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
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Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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