Bifurcation and stability of the steady motions and relative equilibria of a rigid body in a central gravitational field

✍ Scribed by Ye.V. Abrarova; A.V. Karapetyan

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 704 KB
• Volume: 60
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-8928
• DOI: 10.1016/s0021-8928(96)00047-0

✦ Synopsis

The existence, bifurcation and stability of the steady motions of a rigid body in a central gravitational field are studied. The body is modelled as a collection of point masses situated at the ends of three mutually perpendicular diameters of a massless sphere. With this model, one cun use the exact expression for the gravitational potential (see also ). The study considers non-trivial steady motions of a body with a triaxial ellipsoid of inertia such that either two or all three principalaxes of inertia are not axes of the orbital coordina~Ie system. In addition, a restricted formulation of the problem of the relative equilibria of a body whose mass centre is moving in a eixcular Keplerian orbit is considered, and the stability and bifurcation of these equilibria are investigated.