Related papers: Fourth-order gravity gradient torque of spacecraft…
Surface shedding of an asteroid is a failure mode where surface materials fly off due to strong centrifugal forces beyond the critical spin period, while the internal structure does not deform significantly. This paper proposes a possible…
We investigate the utility of a constellation of four satellites in heliocentric orbit, equipped with accurate means to measure intersatellite ranges, round-trip times and phases of signals coherently retransmitted between members of the…
Local nonlinear approximations to the growth of cosmic perturbations are developed, resulting in relations, at a given epoch, between the peculiar velocity and gravity fields and their gradients. Only the equation of motion is approximated,…
As the target of the proposed Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA) mission, the near-Earth binary asteroid 65803 Didymos represents a special class of binary asteroids, those whose primaries are at risk of rotational disruption.…
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…
The YORP effect plays an important role in the spin evolution of asteroids. Although craters are ubiquitous surface features, their influence on YORP torque has received limited attention. In this paper, we investigate the YORP torque of a…
Collisions of gas particles with a drifting grain give rise to a mechanical torque on the grain. Recent work by Lazarian & Hoang showed that mechanical torques might play a significant role in aligning helical grains along the interstellar…
In this article, equilibrium points and families of periodic orbits in the vicinity of the collinear equilibrium points of a binary asteroid system are investigated with respect to the angular velocity of the secondary body, the mass ratio…
We analyze the relativistic dynamical properties of Keplerian and non-Keplerian circular orbits in a general axisymmetric and stationary gravitational field, and discuss the implications for the stability of co- and counter-rotating…
The classical disturbing function of the three-body problem widely used in planetary dynamics studies is an expansion of the gravitational interaction of the three-body problem with respect to zero eccentricity and zero inclination. This…
Despite numerous successful missions to small celestial bodies, the gravity field of such targets has been poorly characterized so far. Gravity estimates can be used to infer the internal structure and composition of small bodies and, as…
In the past decade, hundreds of asteroid shape models have been derived using the lightcurve inversion method. At the same time, a new framework of 3-D shape modeling based on the combined analysis of widely different data sources such as…
The analytic energy gradients with respect to nuclear motion are derived for natural orbital functional (NOF) theory. The resulting equations do not require to resort to linear-response theory, so the computation of NOF energy gradients is…
About 10% of the observed asteroids have rotational periods lower than P = 3 h and they seem to be relatively close to the spin barrier. Yet, the rotation has often been neglected in simulations of asteroid collisions. To determine the…
The gravitational collapse in fourth order theories of gravity defined by an arbitrary action of the scalar curvature shows significant deviations with General Relativity. The presence of a new scalar mode produces a higher initial…
The trajectory of a spherical object which falls freely in a gravitational field is fixed by its initial position and velocity. However, an object which can control its shape can also control its motion: Except where forbidden by symmetries…
By means of a varied-shape thermophysical model (VS-TPM) of Hanus et al. (2015) that takes into account asteroid shape and pole uncertainties, we analyze the thermal IR data acquired by the NASA's WISE satellite of about 300 asteroids with…
We investigate the possibility to explain theoretically the galaxy rotation curves by a gravitational potential in total absence of dark matter. To this aim an analytic fourth-order theory of gravity, nonminimally coupled with a massive…
Attitude Dynamics of a rigid artificial satellite subject to gravity gradient and Lorentz torques in a circular orbit is considered. Lorentz torque is developed on the basis of the electrodynamic effects of the Lorentz force acting on the…
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…