Shane Ross

Engineering math professor at @Virginia_Tech. Dynamics and transport, from spacecraft trajectories to airborne agricultural pathogens.

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

What if a spacecraft could cycle between Earth and Moon orbits, performing multiple circuits of each, naturally and indefinitely, with zero propulsion?

We’ve discovered a new class of stable, prograde, low-energy cycler orbits that do just that.

Why these orbits matter:

Ballistic → fuel-free
Stable → long-term ready
Near-chaotic → agile with low ΔV
Low-energy → access to Earth/Moon, Lagrange points, Sun–Earth L1/L2, even heliocentric space

At the AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics Specialist Conference in Boston next week, I’ll present on a new family of ballistic Earth-Moon cycler orbits that are stable, prograde, and mission agile—unlike any cyclers in the current literature.

The example below is shown in both the Earth-Moon rotating frame and inertial frame.

Conference Paper: https://t.co/v3VDPIT0X4

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

The two sides of my research are talking to each other now

[Dept. of Agriculture @USDA]

USDA 🤝 @NASA

@SecRollins and @NASAAdmin Isaacman today signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen USDA’s data quality and ensure that American farmers and ranchers benefit from cutting-edge technologies.

We’re delivering better agricultural insights, stronger tools, and advanced tech by cooperating on:

🛰️ Mission & data alignment
💻 Data access & infrastructure
📊 Methodology & validation

Details: https://t.co/x4yMep356s

[prof-g @prof_g]

increasingly concerned that ai is revealing the mathematical world as negatively curved. instead of everyone wandering about in idea-space and clustering around the same famous conjectures (local positive curvature), ai is pushing out the boundaries rapidly and revealing that the space of mathematical ideas is ~hyperbolic (negative curvature). though this means there's lots left to discover, it also means that small separations between people/agents will lead to wandering alone.

we may be emerging into an idea-space where there's so much to see and do but everyone is alone in a private heaven, unable to share their subtle joys with others...

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

@LillyWeycker @RilScoJa They are the coolest orbits of all time !

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

@polarbear1066 @Satten16 @drawandstrike Hey @grok, are these numbers correct?

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

3D Earth-Moon cyclers in the real ephemeris with stationkeeping of about 6 m/s per month.

[Riley Scott Jacob @RilScoJa]

Found a linearly stable near-polar Earth-Moon cycler (CR3BP). Every 51.7 days it passes 8,500 km over the lunar south pole. Flown in DE440 with navigation and burn errors, it stays on track for a median 6.4 m/s/mo of delta-v. @RossDynamicsLab thought you'd enjoy this

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

@Doomlaser @drawandstrike The trend is no better per person

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

@visegrad24 Should we criminalize success?

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

@DJSnM @caldodge That's true, but many of the methods have been difficult to use. I'm trying to make tools to make it easier to design trajectories like these.

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

This video was presented at the NASA-USGS Offworld Resources Workshop. Every curve in it is a computed trajectory, not an artist’s sketch.

1: Asteroid material arrives at the Rim, about 1.5 million km out, on natural paths into orbits around Sun-Earth L1 and L2.

2: From the Rim, refined material coasts to the Moon on gravity alone (~40 days) and is captured.

3: A few m/s burn puts it on an Earth-Moon cycler, which drops packages onto other orbits along its route.

The Earth-Moon system is threaded with natural routes like these. Find the right ones, and moving material around cislunar space costs tens of meters per second, not kilometers per second.

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

@CosmicEggEarth whoa! 🤯

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

Rocket pioneer Krafft Ehricke:

"If God wanted man to become a spacefaring species, He would have given man a Moon"

Of the major moons, only ours is heavy and distant enough for its manifolds to join the interplanetary highway

A lunar anthropic principle, from 4-body dynamics

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

This video was presented at the NASA-USGS Offworld Resources Workshop. Every curve in it is a computed trajectory, not an artist’s sketch.

1: Asteroid material arrives at the Rim, about 1.5 million km out, on natural paths into orbits around Sun-Earth L1 and L2.

2: From the Rim, refined material coasts to the Moon on gravity alone (~40 days) and is captured.

3: A few m/s burn puts it on an Earth-Moon cycler, which drops packages onto other orbits along its route.

The Earth-Moon system is threaded with natural routes like these. Find the right ones, and moving material around cislunar space costs tens of meters per second, not kilometers per second.

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

@RealJohnShoe The Moon is so unique, I think without it it wouldn’t be life on earth and many many other things we take for granted. I’ve usually thought of the moon as important for our past, but maybe it’s also important for our future.

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

@HopDavid41 @defnotbeka I have his "Mining the Sky", no autograph. Really nice you got to meet him.

Reminds me, I gave a talk in March 2020 at U Arizona, right before Covid hit. Would've been nice to meet you!

Your artistic renderings of Earth's neighborhood are going to be increasingly valuable.

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

https://t.co/a4zJo1ylM0

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

It was said that Genesis was reinterpreted, permitting God to say: 'Increase and multiply, and fill the universe, and subdue it, and rule over all manner of strange beasts and living creatures in the infinite airs, on the infinite earths and beneath them.'

- Frank Herbert, Dune

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

@JonathanRawles Seems Ehricke believed in a sort of space Manifest Destiny he called the "Extraterrestrial Imperative". Whether he believed it was a divine plan or not, I don't know
https://t.co/KoTqyKig5N

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

@danbri @JoelSercel I have a more quantitative answer your question
https://t.co/S63qp6d2Ib

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

Rocket pioneer Krafft Ehricke:

"If God wanted man to become a spacefaring species, He would have given man a Moon"

Of the major moons, only ours is heavy and distant enough for its manifolds to join the interplanetary highway

A lunar anthropic principle, from 4-body dynamics

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

@defnotbeka Nice, kind of like the Dune universe, so many tens of thousands of years ahead, we've lost track

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

@EternitiesAI Indeed. And he didn’t even know about this orbital dynamics coincidence. The quote is from 1985.

[Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab]

Ehricke's original reasoning was about lower gravity, oxygen/resources, & surface conditions as a first step outward.

The manifolds finding is a later celestial mechanics result he wouldn't have known, but confirms the Moon as uniquely well placed for low cost material movement