Potential hop reachable domain over surface of small bodies

The propagation of hopping trajectories with uncertainties is investigated over the surface of small celestial bodies. An intuitive geometric description of the accessible area referred to as the potential hop reachable domain, is provided when considering the uncertainties of the hopping rover’s state variables as well as the asteroid’s system parameters. A method to solve the envelope of the potential hop reachable domain is proposed by taking into account multi-hopping trajectories, which is applied to the asteroid 101955 Bennu. The influences of the state variables and asteroid physical parameters’ uncertainties on the propagation of hopping trajectories are discussed in detail. A comparison between the solved potential hop reachable domain and the Monte Carlo simulation is carried out to show the effectiveness of the method in this paper.