{"id":17306,"date":"2026-04-10T13:16:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T17:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/?p=17306"},"modified":"2026-04-10T13:16:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T17:16:36","slug":"artemis-ii-trajectory-simulation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/2026\/04\/10\/artemis-ii-trajectory-simulation\/","title":{"rendered":"Artemis II Trajectory Simulation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mike's pick this week is artemis2_trajectory_simulation<\/a> by Jacob Honer<\/a>.<\/div>\r\n
Later this evening the Artemis II crew will splashdown back on Earth following a successful Lunar flyby. The mission has captured the imagination of the world including that of Jacob Horner, A PhD student at Michigan State University. In Jacob's own words:<\/div>\r\n
\"I used MATLAB to put together a 2D Earth-Moon mission simulation in MATLAB that recreates the high-level flow of an Artemis-style free-return trajectory: start in low Earth orbit, complete a parking orbit, perform translunar injection, make a small correction burn, swing around the far side of the Moon, and head back toward Earth.<\/span><\/div>\r\n
The model uses a simplified planar gravity setup, numerical integration with <\/span>ode45<\/span><\/a>, and a search-and-optimization loop to tune the burns and trajectory until the flyby and return lined up the way I wanted. The GIF shows the full result.<\/span><\/div>\r\n
Even for a simplified model like this, it takes a lot of iteration to get a trajectory to behave the way you want. Like many real-world problems, there often is no closed-form solution for the exact outcome you\u2019re after, which is what makes numerical methods so important. That\u2019s one reason I always try to emphasize them to my students: numerical methods are not just useful for one narrow class of problems, they are tools you can use for almost all computational problems!\"<\/span><\/div>\r\n
Jacob has made his code available on GitHub<\/a> and when you run it, you'll get the animation shown below.<\/div>\r\n
\"\"<\/div>\r\n
For more about Artemis II and MATLAB, check out my post from earlier in the week: NASA\u2019s Artemis II mission and MATLAB<\/a>.<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\r\nMike's pick this week is artemis2_trajectory_simulation by Jacob Honer.\r\nLater this evening the Artemis II crew will splashdown back on Earth following a successful Lunar flyby. The mission has... read more >><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[40,16,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17306"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17307,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17306\/revisions\/17307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}