Astrodynamics Commons^™

Deep Space Mission Opportunities To Planet Nine & Eris, Allison G. Carroll

Masters Theses

This research focuses on interplanetary mission design concepts, with the first topic being the study of mission opportunities to Planet Nine, otherwise known as Planet X. Previous studies have speculated about the existence of a large, distant planet beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto. A recent study based on the apparent clustering of perihelia and orbital planes of distant Kuiper Belt Objects identified the most probable values for five of the planet’s orbital elements. However, the true anomaly is still unknown. In this research, a range of critical mission parameters for a Planet X trajectory is analyzed as a …