Related papers: OSIRIS-REx: Sample Return from Asteroid (101955) B…

Advancements in space exploration and sample return technology present a unique opportunity to leverage sample return capsules (SRCs) towards studying atmospheric entry of meteoroids and asteroids. Specifically engineered for the secure…

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will conduct a close flyby of the cold classical Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) designated (486958) 2014 MU69 on January 1, 2019. At a heliocentric distance of 44 AU, "MU69" will be the most distant object ever…

Current spacecraft need to launch with all of their required fuel for travel. This limits the system performance, payload capacity, and mission flexibility. One compelling alternative is to perform In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) by…

The New Horizons spacecraft was launched on 19 January 2006. The spacecraft was designed to provide a platform for seven instruments that will collect and return data from Pluto in 2015. The design drew on heritage from previous missions…

There are thousands of asteroids in near-Earth space and millions in the Main Belt. They are diverse in physical properties and composition and are time capsules of the early solar system. This makes them strategic locations for planetary…

This paper outlines the Radio Science Experiment (RSE) proposed for the RAMSES mission to asteroid (99942) Apophis, which will undergo a close Earth encounter in April 2029. This event provides a unique opportunity to study the asteroid's…

We report the discovery and orbit of a new dwarf planet candidate, 2015 RR$_{245}$, by the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS). 2015 RR$_{245}$'s orbit is eccentric ($e=0.586$), with a semi-major axis near 82 au, yielding a perihelion…

The OSIRIS-REx Thermal Emission Spectrometer (OTES) will provide remote measurements of mineralogy and thermophysical properties of Bennu to map its surface, help select the OSIRIS-REx sampling site, and investigate the Yarkovsky effect.…

Juno is a NASA mission launched in 2011 with the goal of studying Jupiter. The probe will arrive to the planet in 2016 and will be placed for one year in a polar high-eccentric orbit to study the composition of the planet, the gravity and…

The NASA Dawn spacecraft took off from Cape Canaveral in September 2007 atop a Delta II rocket starting an ambitious journey to Vesta and Ceres, the two most massive worlds in the largest reservoir of asteroids in the Solar System, the Main…

Asteroid (162173) Ryugu is the target object of Hayabusa2, an asteroid exploration and sample return mission led by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Ground-based observations indicate that Ryugu is a C-type near-Earth asteroid…

The reentry of the OSIRIS-REx Sample Return Capsule (SRC) on September 24, 2023, presented a rare opportunity to study atmospheric entry dynamics through a dense network of ground-based infrasound sensors. As the first interplanetary…

Following the Pluto fly-by of the New Horizons spacecraft, the mission provided a unique opportunity to explore the Kuiper Belt in-situ. The possibility existed to fly-by a Kuiper Belt object (KBO) as well as to observe additional objects…

The stability and topological structure of equilibrium points in the potential field of the asteroid 101955 Bennu have been investigated with a variable density and rotation period. A dimensionless quantity is introduced for the…

The New Horizons spacecraft, launched by NASA in 2006, will arrive in the Pluto-Charon system on July 14, 2015. There, it will spend a few hours imaging Pluto and its moons. It will then have a small amount of reserve propellant which will…

In the last decades Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) have become very important targets to study, since they can give us clues to the formation, evolution and composition of the Solar System. In addition, they may represent either a threat to…

We present new results of the observing program which is a part of the NEOROCKS project aimed to improve knowledge on physical properties of near-Earth Objects (NEOs) for planetary defense. Photometric observations were performed using the…

Here we study the dynamical effects of the solar radiation pressure (SRP) on a spacecraft that will survey the near-Earth rotating asteroid (101955) Bennu when the projected shadow is accounted for. The spacecraft's motion near (101955)…

We present Keck NIRC2 high angular resolution adaptive optics observations of the microlensing event OGLE-2005-BLG-169, taken 8.21 years after the discovery of this planetary system. For the first time for a microlensing planetary event,…

Near-Earth asteroid 162173 (1999 JU3) is a potential target of two asteroid sample return missions, not only because of its accessibility but also because of the first C-type asteroid for exploration missions. The lightcurve-related…