Related papers: Fourth-order gravity gradient torque of spacecraft…
Purpose: This paper presents a full fourth-order model of the gravity gradient torque of spacecraft around asteroids by taking into consideration of the inertia integrals of the spacecraft up to the fourth order, which is an improvement of…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
The classical problem of attitude stability in a central gravity field is generalized to that on a stationary orbit around a uniformly-rotating asteroid. This generalized problem is studied in the framework of geometric mechanics. Based on…
One of the most accurate models currently used to represent the gravity field of irregular bodies is the polyhedral approach. In this model, the mass of the body is assumed to be homogeneous, which may not be true for a real object. The…
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…
A method for classifying orbits near asteroids under a polyhedral gravitational field is presented, and may serve as a valuable reference for spacecraft orbit design for asteroid exploration. The orbital dynamics near asteroids are very…
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…
The orbital dynamics of a spacecraft orbiting around irregular small celestial bodies is a challenging problem. Difficulties to model the gravity field of these bodies arise from the poor knowledge of the exact shape as observed from the…
Tumbling asteroids belong to a small group of objects, whose angular velocity vector is unaligned with any of its principal axes of inertia. This leads to challenging efforts to model the trajectory of any spacecraft designed to orbit these…
Asteroids have called the attention of researchers around the world. Its chemical and physical composition can give us important information about the formation of our Solar System. In addition, the hypothesis of mining some of these…
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 abstract is additional with repect to the paper published in JGCD. Ordinary Earth satellites are usually placed into five categories of special orbits: sun-synchronous orbits, orbits at the critical inclination, frozen orbits, repeating…
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…
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…