A new class of intermediate thrust arcs in the restricted three-body problem

The Mayer’s variational problem of determining spacecraft optimal trajectories in the context of a classical restricted three-body problem is considered. Integrability of differential equations of a controllable motion in the non-central gravitational field represents well known and challenging task. It is shown that in the absence of sufficient number of first integrals, an explicit dependability of unknown integrals on certain variables can be used to explore the existence of previously unknown particular integrals and solutions of these equations utilizing Dokshevich’s method of analytical dynamics. A new class of extremal analytical solutions of the problem for intermediate thrust arcs is presented. An illustrative example of utilizing these solutions in minimizing the spacecraft characteristic velocity of a transfer from a specified initial position to some final position in the Earth-Moon system is discussed.