Guiding asteroids to form an artificial binary system using continuous control acceleration

Asteroids are being considered for future science missions and for resource exploitation. This paper investigates whether low-thrust acceleration may control two asteroids’ trajectories to form a bounded binary asteroid system inside their zero-velocity curve. An analytical method models an active transverse control acceleration between two asteroids on adjacent circular orbits as a constant or exponential function of transverse position to ensure that the binary asteroid system’s Jacobi constan