Related papers: Earth--Mars Transfers with Ballistic Capture
Exoplanet transmission spectra, which measure the absorption of light passing through a planet's atmosphere during transit, are most often assessed globally, resulting in a single spectrum per planetary atmosphere. However, the inherent…
The wind-driven hopping motion of sand grains, known as saltation, forms dunes and ripples and ejects fine dust particles into the atmosphere on both Earth and Mars. While the wind speed at which saltation is initiated, the fluid threshold,…
Terraforming Mars can be evaluated with a set of system-level constraints linking (i) target pressures & compositions to required atmospheric inventories, (ii) target surface temperatures to the required radiative control, (iii) inventories…
Satellite constellation missions, consisting of a large number of spacecraft, are increasingly being launched or planned. Such missions require novel control approaches, in particular for what concerns orbital phasing maneuvers. In this…
The similarity of Venus and Earth in bulk properties make Venus an appealing target for future colonization. Several proposals have been put forward for colonizing and even terraforming Venus despite the extreme conditions on the planet's…
Dust and sand motion are a common sight on Mars. Understanding the interaction of atmosphere and Martian soil is fundamental to describe the planet's weather, climate and surface morphology. We set up a wind tunnel to study the lift of a…
The climate of Mars likely evolved from a warmer, wetter early state to the cold, arid current state. However, no solutions for this evolution have previously been found to satisfy the observed geological features and isotopic measurements…
The next generation of Mars rotorcrafts requires on-board autonomous hazard avoidance landing. To this end, this work proposes a system that performs continuous multi-resolution height map reconstruction and safe landing spot detection.…
We quantify the effects of refraction in transit transmission spectroscopy on spectral absorption features and on temporal variations that could be used to obtain altitude-dependent spectra for planets orbiting stars of different stellar…
We show that a model in which Mars grows near Earth and Venus but is then scattered out of the terrestrial region yields a natural pathway to explain the low masses of the Martian moons Phobos & Deimos. In this scenario, the last giant…
Most models of volatile delivery to accreting terrestrial planets assume that the carriers for water are similar in water content to the carbonaceous chondrites in our Solar System. Here we suggest that the water content of primitive bodies…
Planetary exploration missions require robust locomotion systems capable of operating in extreme environments over extended periods. This paper presents the DISTANT (Distant Transmission and Steering Systems) design, a novel approach for…
If dark matter is composed of new particles, these may become captured after scattering with nuclei in the Sun, thermalise through additional scattering, and finally annihilate into neutrinos that can be detected on Earth. If dark matter…
Transportation missions in aerospace are limited to the capability of each aerospace robot and the properties of the target transported object, such as mass, inertia, and grasping locations. We present a novel decentralized adaptive…
The emergence of orbital resonances among planets is a natural consequence of the early dynamical evolution of planetary systems. While it is well-established that convergent migration is necessary for mean-motion commensurabilities to…
Exploration of the Red Planet is essential on the way through both human colonization and establishing a habitat on the planet. Due to the high costs of space missions, the use of distributed sensor networks has been investigated to make in…
We consider a dynamical shake-up model to explain the low mass of Mars and the lack of planets in the asteroid belt. In our scenario, a secular resonance with Jupiter sweeps through the inner solar system as the solar nebula depletes,…
Humanity has the knowledge to solve its problems but lacks the moral insight to implement these ideas on a global scale. New moral insight can be obtained through transformative experiences that allow us to examine and refine our underlying…
Materials in which heat and entropy can be transmitted by directed ballistic pulses can trigger new approaches to energy transduction in solids. We predict that a ballistic energy transfer mode, with heat propagation governed by a wave…
Among the various required resources for this civilization, the habitat is one of the crucial resources to live on Mars. Such an extraterrestrial habitat is designed to provide a safe place to live during the initial missions. It is…