Pluto-Charon CR3BP Simulator

This repository contains a numerical simulator for the circular restricted three-body problem (CR3BP), applied to the Pluto–Charon system. The main script (cr3bp_master.py) reproduces the canonical horseshoe orbit, while the additional scripts in the scripts/ directory generate the nine figures shown in the accompanying paper.

Full derivations of the equations of motion and system setup appear in the paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.13479.

Dependencies

This project requires the following Python libraries:

• numpy
• matplotlib

To install dependencies (numpy & matplotlib), download and extract the repository zip file. Then, open Command Prompt (or Terminal), navigate to the extracted folder (for example, cd Downloads/PlutoCharonCR3BP), and run:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Running the Demo

To run the demo:

python cr3bp_master.py

The demo reproduces the canonical horseshoe figure shown in the paper.

Each figure in the paper corresponds to a script in the scripts/ directory, which includes brief comments explaining the parameter modifications required to generate each result. Each script may take up to 20 seconds to run.

Rendered figures appear in the figures/ directory.

Environment

Tested using:

• Python 3.12.10
• numpy 2.3.2
• matplotlib 3.10.5

Tested on Windows 11.