Word.ws English Dictionary

halo orbit

halo orbit noun: a periodic, three-dimensional orbit about any one of the Lagrange points L₁, L₂ or L₃ of a two-body gravitational system.

Noun

halo orbit (plural halo orbits)

  1. (orbital mechanics) A periodic, three-dimensional orbit about any one of the Lagrange points L₁, L₂ or L₃ of a two-body gravitational system.
    • Due to the strong hyperbolic character of the halo orbits, the stable manifold approaches the halo orbit in a very fast way. This fact means that if we are able to put the satellite in the stable manifold of a halo orbit, it will be close to the halo orbit (say at [a] few km) in a reasonable period...2001, G. Gómez, À. Jorba, J. Masdemont, C.Simó, Dynamics and Mission Design Near Libration Points, Volume III, World Scientific, page 93
    • If the ratio of the amplitude in x-direction to γ₁ keeps unchanged (=0.155), the periods of halo orbits are almost the same (about 190 days). As a result of the stability of CRTBP and the dynamics of halo orbit formation, nominal halo orbits do not exist if the ratio is too large or too small.2013, Yuhui Zhao, Shoucun Hu, Xiyun Hou, Lin Liu, Chapter 39: On Nominal Formation Flying Orbit with a Small Solar System Body, Rongjun Shen, Weiping Qian (editors), Proceedings of the 26th...

Forms of halo orbit

pluralhalo orbits

Origin of halo orbit

First used by NASA mission specialist Robert W. Farquhar in 1966 for calculated orbits around the Earth–Moon L₂ point which required the use of thrusters to be made periodic.

Questions about halo orbit

What does halo orbit mean?
Halo orbit means a periodic, three-dimensional orbit about any one of the Lagrange points L₁, L₂ or L₃ of a two-body gravitational system.
What part of speech is halo orbit?
Halo orbit is a noun.
What is the plural of halo orbit?
The plural of halo orbit is halo orbits.

Words near halo orbit in the dictionary

  1. halo hats
  2. halo headlight
  3. halo headlights
  4. halo nuclei
  5. halo nucleus
  6. halo orbit
  7. halo orbits
  8. halo sign
  9. halo signs
  10. halo'd
  11. halo-

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: halo orbit (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “halo orbit.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/halo_orbit. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.