English

Small Celestial Body Exploration with CubeSat Swarms

Robotics 2023-08-28 v1 Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Numerical Analysis Numerical Analysis

Abstract

This work presents a large-scale simulation study investigating the deployment and operation of distributed swarms of CubeSats for interplanetary missions to small celestial bodies. Utilizing Taylor numerical integration and advanced collision detection techniques, we explore the potential of large CubeSat swarms in capturing gravity signals and reconstructing the internal mass distribution of a small celestial body while minimizing risks and Delta V budget. Our results offer insight into the applicability of this approach for future deep space exploration missions.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2308.13333,
  title  = {Small Celestial Body Exploration with CubeSat Swarms},
  author = {Emmanuel Blazquez and Dario Izzo and Francesco Biscani and Roger Walker and Franco Perez-Lissi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2308.13333},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T12:04:15.235Z