Related papers: Optimal impact strategies for asteroid deflection
This work presents a mission concept for in-orbit particle collection for sampling and exploration missions towards Near-Earth asteroids. Ejecta is generated via a small kinetic impactor and two possible collection strategies are…
Because the distant retrograde orbits dynamics inherently depends on special functions, approximate analytical solutions in the literature are commonly constrained to providing rough approximations of the qualitative behavior. We rely on…
In this paper, a new parametrization of the relative motion between two satellites orbiting a central body is presented. The parametrization is based on the nodal elements: a set of angles describing the orbit geometry with respect to the…
We develop the mathematical theory for an automatic, space-based system to deflect NEOs by virtue of missiles shot from the Earth-Moon L1 and L3 Lagrangian Points. A patent application has been filed for the relevant code dubbed AsterOFF…
We present an algorithm to compute the minimum orbital intersection distance (MOID), or global minimum of the distance between the points lying on two Keplerian ellipses. This is achieved by finding all stationary points of the distance…
The dynamical and physical properties of asteroid family members are widely used to reconstruct the collisional evolution of the main belt and of individual objects. Families offer insights into the properties of the parent bodies and the…
We present an optimization-based method to plan the motion of an autonomous robot under the uncertainties associated with dynamic obstacles, such as humans. Our method bounds the marginal risk of collisions at each point in time by…
Asteroid body-fixed hovering problem using nonideal solar sail models in a compact form with controllable sail area is investigated in this paper. The nonlinear dynamic equations for the hovering problem are constructed for a spherically…
This work develops low-energy spacecraft (SC) trajectories using Venus gravity assists to study asteroids during heliocentric transfer segments between planetary encounters. The study focuses on potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) as…
In distributed optimization problems, a technique called gradient coding, which involves replicating data points, has been used to mitigate the effect of straggling machines. Recent work has studied approximate gradient coding, which…
The minimum-fuel orbital transfer is analyzed in the case of a launcher upper stage using a constantly thrusting engine. The thrust level is assumed to be constant and its value is optimized together with the thrust direction. A closed-loop…
Fast and precise propagation of satellite orbits is required for mission design, orbit determination and payload data analysis. We present a method to improve the computational performance of numerical propagators and simultaneously…
Consider an oracle which takes a point $x$ and returns the minimizer of a convex function $f$ in an $\ell_2$ ball of radius $r$ around $x$. It is straightforward to show that roughly $r^{-1}\log\frac{1}{\epsilon}$ calls to the oracle…
All quaternion methods for static attitude determination currently rely on either the spectral decomposition of a 4 x 4 matrix (q-Method) or finding the maximum eigenvalue of a 4th-order characteristic equation (QUEST). Using a spectral…
A classic problem of the motion of a point mass (projectile) thrown at an angle to the horizon is reviewed. The air drag force is taken into account with the drag factor assumed to be constant. Analytic approach is used for investigation.…
One often-used approximation in the study of binary compact objects (i.e., black holes and neutron stars) in general relativity is the instantaneously circular orbit assumption. This approximation has been used extensively, from the…
Estimating the probability of failures or accidents with aerospace systems is often necessary when new concepts or designs are introduced, as it is being done for Autonomous Aircraft. If the design is safe, as it is supposed to be, accident…
We propose a gradient descent method for solving optimization problems arising in settings of tropical geometry - a variant of algebraic geometry that has attracted growing interest in applications such as computational biology, economics,…
We present two approximate versions of the proximal subgradient method for minimizing the sum of two convex functions (not necessarily differentiable). The algorithms involve, at each iteration, inexact evaluations of the proximal operator…
Small displacement methods have been successfully used to calculate the lattice dynamical properties of crystals. It involves displacing atoms by a small amount in order to calculate the induced forces on all atoms in a supercell for the…