Lunar telecommunication and navigation architectures can significantly benefit from placing probes in stable elliptical orbits. Building upon previous research that identified families of quasi-frozen solutions using a double-averaged model (accounting for lunar oblateness and the Earth’s third-body perturbation under a quadrupole approximation of the terrestrial potential), this study extends the analytical framework to the octupole level. The solutions are subsequently employed as initial guesses for a high-fidelity numerical investigation. This comprehensive model removes prior simplifying assumptions, incorporating the Moon’s full gravitational field alongside perturbations from both the Earth and the Sun. Ultimately, we demonstrate the robustness of these refined configurations, supporting their use in the design of future lunar mission architectures.

The dynamics of a probe orbiting a moon can be significantly influenced by the non-coincidence between the moon's equatorial and orbital planes. Thus, we performed a general analysis about the effects of the angle (obliquity) between the above-mentioned planes and of the angle (nodal phasing) between the nodal lines of the mother planet's apparent orbit and the probe orbit on the lifetime of the probe. The lifetime, strictly correlated to the variations in eccentricity of the probe orbit, was evaluated starting from low values of the semi-major axis, moderate eccentricity, and high inclination to offer high ground spatial resolution and extend latitudinal coverage of the natural satellite. This investigation, carried out through numerical simulations, may be useful for identifying the optimal initial conditions of the probe's orbit elements, leading to an important increase in the probe lifetime in missions devoted to the exploration of natural satellites.