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A halo orbit is a periodic, Orbital plane orbit associated with one of the L1, L2 or L3 in the three-body problem of orbital mechanics. Although a Lagrange point is just a point in empty space, its peculiar characteristic is that it can be orbited by a Lissajous orbit or by a halo orbit. These can be thought of as resulting from an interaction between the gravitational pull of the two planetary bodies and the Coriolis effect and centrifugal force on a spacecraft. Halo orbits exist in any three-body system, e.g., a Sun–Earth–orbiting satellite system or an Earth–Moon–orbiting satellite system. Continuous "families" of both northern and southern halo orbits exist at each Lagrange point. Because halo orbits tend to be unstable, station-keeping using thrusters may be required to keep a satellite on the orbit.
Most satellites in halo orbit serve scientific purposes, for example .
In 1973 Farquhar and Ahmed Kamel found that when the in-plane amplitude of a Lissajous orbit was large enough there would be a corresponding out-of-plane amplitude that would have the same period, so the orbit ceased to be a Lissajous orbit and became approximately an ellipse. They used analytical expressions to represent these halo orbits; in 1984, Kathleen Howell showed that more precise trajectories could be computed numerically. Additionally, she found that for most values of the ratio between the masses of the two bodies (such as the Earth and the Moon) there was a range of stable orbits.
The first mission to use a halo orbit was ISEE-3, a joint ESA and NASA spacecraft launched in 1978. It traveled to the Sun–Earth point and remained there for several years. The next mission to use a halo orbit was Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), also a joint ESA/NASA mission to study the Sun, which arrived at Sun–Earth in 1996. It used an orbit similar to ISEE-3. (2025). 9789812383631 ISBN 9789812383631 Although several other missions since then have traveled to Lagrange points, they (eg. Gaia astrometric space observatory) typically have used the related non-periodic variations called rather than an actual halo orbit.
Although halo orbits were well known in the RTBP (Restricted Three Body Problem), it was difficult to obtain Halo orbits for the real Earth-Moon system. Translunar halo orbits were first computed in 1998 by M.A. Andreu, who introduced a new model for the motion of a spacecraft in the Earth-Moon-Sun system, which was called Quasi-Bicircular Problem (QBCP).
In May 2018, Farquhar's original idea was finally realized when China placed the first communications relay satellite, Queqiao, into a halo orbit around the Earth-Moon point. On 3 January 2019, the Chang'e 4 spacecraft landed in the Von Kármán crater on the far side of the Moon, using the Queqiao relay satellite to communicate with the Earth.
The James Webb Space Telescope entered a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth point on 24 January 2022. Euclid entered a similar orbit around this point in August 2023.
India's space agency ISRO launched Aditya-L1 to study the Sun from a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L point. On 6 January 2024, the spacecraft, India's first solar mission, successfully entered a halo orbit with a period of approximately 178 days, at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
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