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The dynamical behavior of spacecraft around asteroids is a key element in design of such missions. An asteroid's irregular shape, non-spherical mass distribution and its rotational sate make the dynamics of spacecraft quite complex. This…
A method for asteroid deflection that makes use of a spacecraft moving back and forth on a segment of a Keplerian orbit about the asteroid is studied with the aim of optimizing the initial gross mass of the spacecraft. The corresponding…
The Gravity Tractor (GT) is a fully controlled asteroid deflection concept using the mutual gravity between a robotic spacecraft and an asteroid to slowly accelerate the asteroid in the direction of the "hovering" spacecraft. Based on early…
Accurate modeling of gravitational interactions is fundamental to the analysis, prediction, and control of space systems. While the Newtonian point-mass approximation suffices for many preliminary studies, real celestial bodies exhibit…
High order algorithms have emerged in numerical astrophysics as a promising avenue to reduce truncation error (proportional to a power of the linear resolution $\Delta x$) with only a moderate increase to computational expense. Significant…
This paper presents an integrated model-learning predictive control scheme for spacecraft orbit-attitude station-keeping in the vicinity of asteroids. The orbiting probe relies on optical and laser navigation while attitude measurements are…
A consequent approach is proposed to construct symplectic force-gradient algorithms of arbitrarily high orders in the time step for precise integration of motion in classical and quantum mechanics simulations. Within this approach the basic…
A method for asteroid deflection that makes use of a spacecraft moving back and forth on a segment of an appropriate Keplerian orbit about the asteroid is described and evaluated. It is shown that, on average, the spacecraft describing such…
We present a concept for a spacecraft that can controllably alter the trajectory of an Earth threatening asteroid using gravity as a towline. The spacecraft hovers near the asteroid with thrusters angled outward so the exhaust does not…
A global model is presented that can be used to study attitude maneuvers of a rigid spacecraft in a circular orbit about a large central body. The model includes gravity gradient effects that arise from the non-uniform gravity field and…
Accurate gravity field calculations are necessary for landing on planets, moons, asteroids, minimoons, or other irregularly shaped bodies, but current methods become increasingly inaccurate and slow near the surface. We present high…
An innovative orbit determination method which makes use of gravity gradients for Low-Earth-Orbiting satellites is proposed. The measurement principle of gravity gradiometry is briefly reviewed and the sources of measurement error are…
The attitude dynamics of aircraft and spacecraft exhibit significantly nonlinear behaviour. In spacecraft, torque is generated through reaction wheels and control moment gyros. In aircraft, torque is generated using lift on control…
Building on earlier work, we discuss a general framework for exploring the cosmological dynamics of Higher Order Theories of Gravity. We show that once the theory of gravity has been specified, the cosmological equations can be written as a…
In this Note, a new approach to spacecraft positioning based on GGT inversion is presented. The gravity gradient tensor is initially measured in the gradiometer reference frame (GRF) and then transformed to the Earth-Centered Earth-Fixed…
The recent growing interest in small solar system bodies such as asteroids and comets for scientific inspection, exploitation of resources, and planetary defense reasons is pushing the development of innovative engineering solutions to…
Determining cosmological field equations represents a still very debated matter and implies a wide discussion around different theoretical proposals. A suitable conceptual scheme could be represented by gravity models that naturally…
We discuss the dynamical system approach applied to Higher Order Theories of Gravity. We show that once the theory of gravity has been specified, the cosmological equations can be written as a first-order autonomous system and we give…
We aim at providing a preliminary approach on the dynamics of a spacecraft in orbit about the asteroid (99942) Apophis during its Earth close approach. The physical properties from the polyhedral shape of the target are derived assigning…
We construct the general effective field theory of gravity coupled to the Standard Model of particle physics, which we name GRSMEFT. Our method allows the systematic derivation of a non-redundant set of operators of arbitrary dimension with…