Related papers: Directed Energy Missions for Planetary Defense
Asteroidal impact threats to the Earth will be predicted a century or more in advance. Changing an asteroid's albedo changes the force of Solar radiation on it, and hence its orbit. Albedo may be changed by applying a thin ($\sim 0.1\,\mu$)…
Understanding dust dynamics in the vicinity of asteroids is key for future science missions and, in the long-term, for asteroid exploitation. This paper analyzes the feasibility of manipulating asteroid material by means of solar radiation…
Most stars host short-period planets that are expected to be engulfed during post-main-sequence expansion. The dissolution of engulfed planets has been proposed as a possible mechanism for producing stars enriched in lithium and refractory…
High-contrast imaging observations of large angular diameter stars enable complementary science questions to be addressed compared to the baseline goals of proposed missions like the Terrestrial Planet Finder-Coronagraph, New World's…
This study presents autonomous guidance and control strategies for the purpose of reconfiguring close-range multi-satellite formations. The formation under consideration includes $N$ under-actuated deputy satellites and an uncontrolled…
Using a fully autonomous spacecraft - Bering - we propose to detect and study sub-km asteroids from an orbit within the asteroid Main Belt. The main purpose of the proposed Bering mission is to detect a statistically significant sample of…
Context: Observation of star occultations is a powerful tool to determine shapes and sizes of asteroids. This is key information necessary for studying the evolution of the asteroid belt and to calibrate indirect methods of size…
The design of mission scenarios for the flyby investigation of nearby star systems by probes launched using directed energy is addressed. Multiple probes are launched with a fixed launch infrastructure, and download of scientific data…
Stark deceleration allows for precise control over the velocity of a pulsed molecular beam and, by the nature of its limited phase-space acceptance, reduces the energy width of the decelerated packet. We describe an alternate method of…
Over the several decades, the space debris at LEO has grown rapidly which had caused a serious threat to the operating satellite in an orbit. To avoid the risk of collision and protect the LEO environment, the space robotics ADR concept has…
The NEAT (Nearby Earth Astrometric Telescope) mission is a proposition submitted to ESA for its 2010 call for M-size mission. The main scientific goal is to detect and characterize planetary systems in an exhaustive way down to 1 Earth mass…
Asteroids and other Small Solar System Bodies (SSSBs) are of high general and scientific interest in many aspects. The origin, formation, and evolution of our Solar System (and other planetary systems) can be better understood by analysing…
The proposed fast ignition of highly compressed deuterium-tritium (DT) targets by petawatt lasers requires energy of about 100kJ. To lower the power of the laser, it is proposed to accomplish fast ignition with two lasers, one with lower…
We analyse the potential of the electric solar wind sail for solar system space missions. Applications studied include fly-by missions to terrestrial planets (Venus, Mars and Phobos, Mercury) and asteroids, missions based on non-Keplerian…
In this paper we put forward a proposal to use Near Earth Objects as radiation shield for deep space exploration. In principle these objects can provide also a spacious habitat for the astronauts and their supplies on their journeys. We…
The anomalous orbits of trans-Neptunian objects can be accounted for by the planet 9 hypothesis. One intriguing possibility is that planet 9 could be a dilute axion star captured by the solar system, with the ratio of the axion star to dark…
A moon or natural satellite is a celestial body that orbits a planetary body such as a planet, dwarf planet, or an asteroid. Scientists seek understanding the origin and evolution of our solar system by studying moons of these bodies.…
A realistic mission scenario for the deflection of fictitious asteroid 2015PDC is investigated that makes use of the ion beam shepherd concept as primary deflection technique. The article deals with the design of a low thrust rendezvous…
The most observable leakage radiation from an advanced civilization may well be from the use of power beaming to transfer energy and accelerate spacecraft. Applications suggested for power beaming involve launching spacecraft to orbit,…
Small-satellites and CubeSats offer a low-cost pathway to access Low Earth Orbit at altitudes of 450 km and lower thanks to miniaturization and advancement in reliability of commercial electronics. However, at these low altitudes,…