Related papers: Parameter-space study of kinetic-impactor mission …
Here we show how to determine the orbital parameters of a system composed of a star and N companions (that can be planets, brown-dwarfs or other stars), using a simple Fourier analysis of the radial velocity data of the star. This method…
This paper presents an analysis of optimal impact strategies to deflect potentially dangerous asteroids. To compute the increase in the minimum orbit intersection distance of the asteroid due to an impact with a spacecraft, simple…
Black-box optimizers that explore in parameter space have often been shown to outperform more sophisticated action space exploration methods developed specifically for the reinforcement learning problem. We examine these black-box methods…
Neglecting small fragments in space debris evolutionary models can lead to a significant underestimation of the collision risk for operational satellites. However, when scaling down to the millimeter range, the debris population grows to…
A procedure to solve few-body problems which is based on an expansion over a small parameter is developed. The parameter is the ratio of potential energy to kinetic energy in the subspace of states having not small hyperspherical quantum…
Exploration of asteroids and comets can give insight into the origins of the solar system and can be instrumental in planetary defence and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Asteroids, due to their low gravity are a challenging target for…
Shock-physics numerical codes are essential tools for describing the short but extreme fragmentation stage of the hypervelocity impact process on asteroids. However, accurately representing complex interior structures, surfaces, and contact…
The Planck mission, originally devised for cosmological studies, offers the opportunity to observe Solar System objects at millimetric and submillimetric wavelengths. We concentrate in this paper on the asteroids of the Main Belt. We intend…
This work develops low-energy spacecraft (SC) trajectories using Venus gravity assists to study asteroids during heliocentric transfer segments between planetary encounters. The study focuses on potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) as…
Recent studies of optimization methods and GNC of spacecraft near small bodies focusing on descent, landing, rendezvous, etc., with key safety constraints such as line-of-sight conic zones and soft landings have shown promising results;…
We numerically investigate the orbital dynamics of a spacecraft, or a comet, or an asteroid in the Pluto-Charon system in a scattering region around Charon using the planar circular restricted three-body problem. The test particle can move…
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…
We study the time evolution of the impact probability for synthetic but realistic impacting and close approaching asteroids detected in a simulated all-sky survey. We use the impact probability to calculate the impact warning time as the…
Space debris larger than 1 cm can damage space instruments and impact Earth. The low-Earth orbits (at heights smaller than 2000 km) and orbits near the geostationary- Earth orbit (at 35786 km height) are especially endangered, because most…
Movement primitives are an important policy class for real-world robotics. However, the high dimensionality of their parametrization makes the policy optimization expensive both in terms of samples and computation. Enabling an efficient…
Space debris is a major threat to the satellite infrastructure. A collision with even small particle, e.g. 1 cm of size, can cause a catastrophic event when the parent body, spacecraft or upper stage, will break up into hundreds of…
This work presents a mission concept for in-orbit particle collection for sampling and exploration missions towards Near-Earth asteroids. Ejecta is generated via a small kinetic impactor and two possible collection strategies are…
We aim at providing a preliminary approach on the dynamics of a spacecraft in orbit about the asteroid (99942) Apophis during its Earth close approach. The physical properties from the polyhedral shape of the target are derived assigning…
We investigate the qualitative characteristics of a test particle attracted to an irregular elongated body, modeled as a non-homogeneous straight segment with a variable linear density. By deriving the potential function in closed form, we…
The detailed interior structure models of super-Earth planets show that there is degeneracy in the possible bulk compositions of a super-Earth at a given mass and radius, determined via radial velocity and transit measurements,…