Related papers: A Cubesat Centrifuge for Long Duration Milligravit…
A concept for forced reentry of small orbital debris with characteristic dimension ~ 10 cm from the highly populated sun synchronous orbit by injecting micron scale dust grains to artificially enhance drag is discussed. The drag enhancement…
This study evaluates a technique for determining the mass of a potentially hazardous asteroid from a high-speed flyby in the context of a rapid reconnaissance planetary defense scenario. We consider a host spacecraft that dispenses a small…
In this paper, a practical approach to the trajectory design for asteroid exploration missions with CubeSats is presented. When applied trajectories are sought, operative concerns and uncertainties affecting the spacecraft dynamics must be…
We developed an experiment to study different aspects of granular matter under microgravity. The 1.5U small experiment was carried out on the International Space Station. About 3500 almost identical spherical glass particles with 856 um…
Asteroid mining offers the possibility to revolutionize supply of resources vital for human civilization. Preliminary analysis suggests that Near-Earth Asteroids (NEA) contain enough volatile and high value minerals to make the mining…
One of the least understood processes in astrophysics is the formation of planetesimals from molecules and dust within protoplanetary disks. In fact, current methods have strong limitations when it comes to model the full dynamics in this…
The collisional and sticking properties of sub-mm-sized aggregates composed of protoplanetary dust analogue material are measured, including the statistical threshold velocity between sticking and bouncing, their surface energy and tensile…
CubeSats are small satellites built in standard sizes and form factors, which have been growing in popularity but have thus far been largely ignored within the field of astronomy. When deployed as space-based telescopes, they enable science…
The preliminary mission design of spacecraft missions to asteroids often involves, in the early phases, the selection of candidate target asteroids. The final result of such an analysis is a list of asteroids, ranked with respect to the…
The exploration of asteroids and comets is important in the quest for the formation of the Solar System and it is an important step for human space travel. Moving on the surface of asteroids is challenging for future robotic explorers due…
The miniaturization of electronics, sensors and actuators has enabled the growing use of CubeSats and sub-20 kg spacecraft. Their reduced mass and volume has the potential to translate into significant reductions in required propellant and…
Many asteroids show indications they have undergone impacts with meteoroid particles having radii between 0.01 m and 1 m. During such impacts, small dust grains will be ejected at the impact site. The possibility of these dust grains (with…
Today there are numerous studies on asteroid mining. They elaborate on selecting the right objects, prospecting missions, potential asteroid redirection, and the mining process itself. For economic reasons, most studies focus on mining…
After many years of flying in space primarily for educational purposes, CubeSats - tiny satellites with form factors corresponding to arrangements of "1U" units, or cubes, each 10 cm on a side - have come into their own as valuable…
In order to improve our understanding of landing on small bodies and of asteroid evolution, we use our novel drop tower facility to perform low-velocity (2-40 cm s^-1), shallow impact experiments of a 10 cm diameter aluminum sphere into…
This work presents the simulation results of the radio science experiment onboard the proposed Heavy Metal mission to the M-type asteroid (216) Kleopatra. Earth-based radiometric measurements (range and range-rate), complemented by images…
AcubeSAT is an open-source CubeSat mission aiming to explore the effects of microgravity and radiation on eukaryotic cells using a compact microfluidic lab-on-a-chip platform. It is developed by SpaceDot, a volunteer, interdisciplinary…
The observation of the low-energy $\gamma$-ray (0.1-30 MeV) sky has been significantly limited since the COMPTEL instrument was decommissioned aboard the Compton Gamma-ray Observer (CGRO) satellite in 2000. The exploration of $\gamma$-ray…
We have performed an initial stage conceptual design study for the Deep Interior Scanning CubeSat (DISCUS), a tandem 6U CubeSat carrying a bistatic radar as main payload. DISCUS will be operated either as an independent mission or…
Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) are thought to contain a wealth of resources, including water, iron, titanium, nickel, platinum and silicates. Future space missions that can exploit these resources by performing In-Situ Resource Utilization…