The planar restricted three-body problem when both primaries are triaxial rigid bodies: Equilibrium points and periodic orbits

The restricted three-body problem when the primaries are triaxial rigid bodies is considered and its basic dynamical features are studied. In particular, the equilibrium points are identified as well as their stability is determined in the special case when the Euler angles of rotational motion are accordingly \(\theta_{i} = \psi_{i} = \pi/2\) and \(\varphi_{i} = \pi/2\), \(i = 1, 2\). It is found that three unstable collinear equilibrium points exist and two triangular such points which may be stable. Special attention has also been paid to the study of simple symmetric periodic orbits and 31 families consisting of such orbits have been determined. It has been found that only one of these families consists entirely of unstable members while the remaining families contain stable parts indicating that other families bifurcate from them. Finally, using the grid-search technique a global solution in the space of initial conditions is obtained which comprises simple and of higher multiplicities symmetric periodic orbits as well as escape and collision orbits.