Getting to the moon is partly a fuel problem. Plotting the most efficient path between two points in space saves propellant, and every kilogram of propellant conserved is money in the bank. Even tiny improvements can shave millions off the total cost of a mission.
Now, in a study published in the journal Astrodynamics, an international team of researchers says it has worked out a more efficient way to calculate routes between Earth and the moon. The tool behind it is the theory of functional connections, a mathematical technique that enables advanced computer modeling by slashing the computing power needed for complex simulations.
Using this method, the team identified a more efficient path that targets the Earth-Moon L1 Lagrange point—a “hub” in space where gravitational forces balance out—as a key staging area.
The team put those computational savings to use in a big way. Rather than test a few dozen possible paths, they modeled 30 million of them. Their published study walks through 280,000 of those in detail.
“The systematic analysis we applied in our work is something that could be adopted more widely going forward,” study lead author Allan Kardec de Almeida Júnior said in a statement.
It’s an insight worth holding on to because while a new route to the moon is handy on its own, the method that found it might end up mattering more. Crunching through millions of trajectories cheaply and fast isn’t a trick limited to the Earth-moon trip. It could feed into mission planning of all kinds.
This efficiency couldn’t come at a better time since lunar travel is having a moment, too. NASA’s Artemis program has astronauts flying crewed missions around the moon again.
In a sustained program such as the Artemis one that plans to carry a series of increasingly complex missions, small improvements in route planning can deliver substantial savings across multiple flights rather than just one mission.
Sources: Springer Nature, Agência FAPESP, Space