Related papers: Ion Beam Shepherd for Asteroid Deflection
Laser-driven ion acceleration provides ultra-short, high-charge, low-emittance beams, which are desirable for a wide range of high-impact applications. Yet after decades of research, a significant increase in maximum ion energy is still…
Orbit-determination programs find the orbit solution that best fits a set of observations by minimizing the RMS of the residuals of the fit. For near-Earth asteroids, the uncertainty of the orbit solution may be compatible with trajectories…
We optimize a six degrees of freedom hovering policy using reinforcement meta-learning. The policy maps flash LIDAR measurements directly to on/off spacecraft body-frame thrust commands, allowing hovering at a fixed position and attitude in…
Electromagnetic propulsion technology has been thought to provide a potential form of future spacecraft propulsion for some time. In contrast to ion thrusters, which utilize the Coulomb force to accelerate positively charged species,…
Exploration of asteroids and comets can give insight into the origins of the solar system and can be instrumental in planetary defence and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Asteroids, due to their low gravity are a challenging target for…
The space charge limited emission of ions from a target in the focus of an intense relativistic electron beam is studied analytically for the case of a spatially varying target density profile. In particular, the emission in the presence of…
In everyday life, we often find that we can maintain an object's equilibrium on a tray by adjusting its orientation. Building upon this observation and extending the method we previously proposed to suppress sloshing in a moving vessel,…
Young and forming planetesimals experience impacts from particles present in a protostellar disk. Using crater scaling laws, we integrate ejecta distributions for oblique impacts. For impacts at 10 to 65 m/s, expected for impacts associated…
A neutral beam injection technique is employed in all major TOKAMAK facilities for heating of magnetically confined plasma. The question then arises, whether a similar mechanism might work in astrophysical objects? For instance, a…
Trapped atomic ions have become one of the most promising architectures for a quantum computer, and current effort is now devoted to the transport of trapped ions through complex segmented ion trap structures in order to scale up to much…
The exponential rise in small-satellites and CubeSats in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) poses important challenges for future space traffic management. At altitudes of 600 km and lower, aerodynamic drag accelerates de-orbiting of satellites.…
The Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) proposes to retrieve a near-Earth asteroid and position it in a lunar distant retrograde orbit (DRO) for later study, crewed exploration, and ultimately resource exploitation. During the Caltech Space…
This paper solves and analyzes a trajectory optimization problem to deflect Earth-crossing objects (ECOs) employing continuous thrust obtained using a laser ablative system. The optimal control is determined for various initial ECO-Earth…
The minimum-fuel low-thrust transfer between circular orbits is formulated using the Edelbaum's averaged dynamics with the addition of the nodal precession due to the first zonal term. The extremal analysis shows that an optimal transfer is…
Bombardment of a solid surface with a broad, obliquely-incident ion beam frequently produces nanoscale surface ripples. The primary obstacle that prevents the adoption of ion bombardment as a nano-fabrication tool is the high density of…
Context. Tangential YORP is a thermophysical effect that can alter the rotation rate of asteroids and is distinct from the "normal" YORP effect, but to date has only been studied for asteroids with zero obliquity. Aims. The tangential YORP…
There are thousands of asteroids in near-Earth space and millions in the Main Belt. They are diverse in physical properties and composition and are time capsules of the early solar system. This makes them strategic locations for planetary…
An enhanced ionization injection scheme using a tightly focused laser pulse with intensity near the ionization potential to trigger the injection process in a mismatched pre-plasma channel has been proposed and examined via…
Large-payload deep space missions are impractical with current rocket propulsion technologies in use. Chemical thrusters yield a high thrust but low efficiency while ion thrusters are efficient but provide too little thrust for large…
A recent study [1] has introduced an advanced method aimed at extracting from a circular particle accelerator over millions of turns using stable islands and a bent crystal. This technique leverages the strength of non-linear beam dynamics…