Related papers: Precise Pointing of Cubesat Telescopes: Comparison…
In Coulomb drag propulsion, a long high voltage tether or system of tethers gathers momentum from a natural plasma stream such as solar wind or ionospheric plasma ram flow. A positively polarised tether in the solar wind can be used for…
Electrospray thrusters are emerging as a leading propulsion technology for CubeSats, offering high specific impulse ($I_{sp} > 1000$ s) and low power requirements. However, the divergent ion plumes can impinge on spacecraft surfaces,…
Accurate thermal analysis is crucial for modern spacecraft, driving demand for reliable modeling tools. This research advances space thermal modeling by improving the simulation accuracy and efficiency of radiative heat transfer, the…
Balloon-borne astronomy is unique in that it allows for a level of image stability, resolution, and optical backgrounds that are comparable to space-borne systems due to greatly reduced atmospheric interference, but at a fraction of the…
At a fraction the total cost of an equivalent orbital mission, scientific balloon-borne platforms, operating above 99.7% of the Earth's atmosphere, offer attractive, competitive, and effective observational capabilities -- namely space-like…
Recent spacecraft mission concepts propose larger payloads that have lighter, less rigid structures. For large lightweight structures, the natural frequencies of their vibration modes may fall within the attitude controller bandwidth,…
Exploration of terrestrial planets such as Mars are conducted using orbiters, landers and rovers. Cameras and instruments onboard orbiters have enabled global mapping of Mars at low spatial resolution. Landers and rovers such as the Mars…
We present a scanning probe microscopy technique for spatially resolving transport in cold atomic gases, in close analogy with scanning gate microscopy in semiconductor physics. The conductance of a quantum point contact connected to two…
Magnetic bright points on the solar photosphere mark the footpoints of kilogauss magnetic flux tubes extending toward the corona. Convective buffeting of these tubes is believed to excite magnetohydrodynamic waves, which can propagate to…
Aerocapture is a maneuver which uses aerodynamic drag to slow down a spacecraft in a single pass through the atmosphere. All planetary orbiters to date have used propulsive orbit insertion. Aerocapture is a promising alternative, especially…
Quantum inertial sensors test general relativity, measure fundamental constants, and probe dark matter and dark energy in the laboratory with outstanding accuracy. Their precision relies heavily on carefully choreographed quantum control of…
This work presents a closed-loop guidance algorithm for six-degrees of freedom spacecraft rendezvous with a passive target flying in an eccentric orbit. The main assumption is that the chaser vehicle has an attitude control system, based on…
There is a growing interest in Lunar exploration fed by the perception that the Moon can be made accessible to low-cost missions in the next decade. The on-going projects to set a communications relay in Lunar orbit and a deep space…
Thermometric techniques with high accuracy, fast response speed and ease of implementation are desirable for the study of dynamic combustion environments, transient reacting flows, and non-equilibrium plasmas. Herein, single-shot…
CubeSats offer a cost-effective platform for various space missions, but their limited fuel capacity and susceptibility to environmental disturbances pose significant challenges for precise orbital maneuvering. This paper presents a novel…
The Earth Observation planning community has access to tools that can propagate orbits and compute coverage of Earth observing imagers with customizable shapes and orientation, model the expected Earth Reflectance at various bands, epochs…
CubeSats are routinely used for low-cost photometry from space. Space-borne spectroscopy, however, is still the exclusive domain of much larger platforms. Key astrophysical questions in e.g. stellar physics and exoplanet research require…
Sensitive and accurate rotation sensing is a critical requirement for applications such as inertial navigation [1], north-finding [2], geophysical analysis [3], and tests of general relativity [4]. One effective technique used for rotation…
We present the validation of ADBSat, a novel implementation of the panel method including a fast pseudo-shading algorithm, that can quickly and accurately determine the forces and torques on satellites in free-molecular flow. Our main…
State-of-the-art space science missions increasingly rely on automation due to spacecraft complexity and the costs of human oversight. The high volume of data, including scientific and telemetry data, makes manual inspection challenging.…