Stability of Icy moon orbits

[Fsci123]

Hi everyone, I am interested in placing a small colony near some of the icy moons...most notably Callisto, Titan, and the other Gallilean moons. I have been trying to find some scientific papers regarding the stability of orbits around the moons and the stability of their lagrangian points... But I haven't found any.

Is anyone aware of papers about such a topic or how I may be able to easily simulate them?

Thanks
Fsci

[stevebowers]

The stability of an orbit around our own moon is mostly dependent on the distribution of mass inside the moon itself; a number of anomalous mass concentrations are present, making low orbits unstable. I would expect higher orbits to be a little more stable.

If there are any mascons on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn I haven't heard of them - but a reasonably high orbit, more than 1000km say, should be okay for a while. General opinion seems to be that any satelite of these moons would need to perform station keeping over time; see
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/lofiv...t2902.html

[Dalex]

If you don't want to waste propelant give them some solar sails or charged tethers (magnetosphere of Jupiter is very strong).

BTW Titan is not Galilean moon.