PhD student here... ready to offer help and be part of the team... | Orbits and burns | Forum

Welcome!  It is wonderful to have someone with your sorts of qualifications here!

I am very interested in furthering our work on the trajectory plan for CLLARE.  Simplicity is the absolute order of the day, so I think we should aim for an entirely coplanar transfer from Earth parking orbit to lunar orbit.  As I understand it this puts considerable restrictions on possible launch dates, since the inclination of the moon's orbit relative to the Earth's equator "wobbles" over time.  If we indeed end up using the Falcon 9 as a launch vehicle we will be launching from Cape Canaveral, which is at latitude 28.46675 deg.  Knowing the duration of coplanar transfer launch windows from this location and their frequency would be a great help in assessing the feasibility of this simplest approach, but I haven't yet found the time to investigate either of these.  If you could share any knowledge or resources on this front it would be fantastic.

I imagine that the work involved in CLLARE might be a little boring for you (e.g no WSB orbits or the like), but hopefully more interesting projects will come along soon.

I suppose I should also take the chance to say here that I am very keen on learning more about this field.  I have degrees in pure and applied mathematics so I am familiar with differential equations and their numerical solution, as well as some basic of dynamical systems theory, etc.  I think that navigation and guidance is the one part of CLLARE that I could most easily become sufficiently profficient in to make really solid technical contributions, rather than just relying on generic scientific knowledge like I do for everything else.  So I look forward to watching you work with us and learning whatever I can from you. :)