Moon-Centered Inertial Frame

Author: Tianjiang Shuo

Website: https://cislunarspace.cn

Definition

A reference frame centered at the Moon's mass center with axes fixed relative to inertial space. Unlike the Moon-Centered Rotating (MCR) frame, the Earth's position is time-varying in the MCI frame, making the CR3BP equations explicitly time-dependent. This paper formulates the CR3BP in the MCI frame rather than the MCR frame so that both two-body and three-body models share the same state vector basis, enabling seamless transition during dynamics continuation.

Application Value

In the Moon-centered inertial frame, the Earth position varies with time, making it suitable for seamless two-body model transitions and lunar probe trajectory dynamics research.

Related Concepts

• Variable Structure Sliding Mode Control
• Pontryagin Minimum Principle
• Error Function

References

• Oue等 - 2025 - Low-Thrust Many-Revolution Transfer between Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit and Low Lunar Orbit Using Hybrid Differential Dynamic Programming
• Peng et al. 2024, AIAA Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, doi:10.2514/1.A35623