A fuel efficient technique for changing the inclination, with respect to the
Earth's
equator, for a satellite includes first maneuvering the satellite to the moon on
a BCT (Ballistic Capture Transfer). At the moon, the satellite is in the so-called
fuzzy boundary or weak stability boundary. A negligibly small maneuver can then
bring it back to the Earth on a reverse BCT to the desired Earth inclination. Another
maneuver puts it into the new ellipse at the earth. In the case of satellites launched
from Vandenberg AFB into LEO in a circular orbit of an altitude of 700 km with
an inclination of 34, approximately 6 km/s is required to change the inclination
to 90. The previous flight time associated with this method was approximately
170 days. A modification of this method also achieves a significant savings and
unexpected benefits in energy as measured by Delta-V, where the flight time is
also substantially reduced to 88 or even 6 days. Various alternative embodiments
are disclosed.