Related papers: Mobility and Science operations On An Asteroid Usi…

Orbital resonances are believed to be responsible for the delivery of main belt asteroids to the inner Solar System. Several possibilities have been suggested to transport asteroids and their fragments into mean motion and secular…

Spin off events and impacts can eject boulders from an asteroid surface and rubble pile asteroids can accumulate from debris following a collision between large asteroids. These processes produce a population of gravitational bound objects…

This paper presents the results of a mission concept study for an autonomous micro-scale surface lander also referred to as PANIC - the Pico Autonomous Near-Earth Asteroid In Situ Characterizer. The lander is based on the shape of a regular…

Asteroids have called the attention of researchers around the world. Its chemical and physical composition can give us important information about the formation of our Solar System. In addition, the hypothesis of mining some of these…

We propose to use a modest fraction of the re-purposed Kepler mission time and apertures to greatly increase the quantity and quality of our knowledge of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) rotation and shape. NEAs are important for understanding…

Leveraging advancements in micro-scale technology, we propose a fleet of autonomous, low-cost, small solar sails for interplanetary exploration. The Berkeley Low-cost Interplanetary Solar Sail (BLISS) project aims to utilize small-scale…

So far, multiple stellar systems harbor more than 130 extra solar planets. Dynamical simulations show that the outcome of planetary formation process can lead to various planetary architecture (i.e. location, size, mass and water content)…

Current practice for asteroid close proximity maneuvers requires extremely accurate characterization of the environmental dynamics and precise spacecraft positioning prior to the maneuver. This creates a delay of several months between the…

Context. The study of planet-crossing asteroids is of both practical and fundamental importance. As they are closer than asteroids in the Main Belt, we have access to a smaller size range, and this population frequently impacts planetary…

Using the "statite," or static-satelite, concept -- an artificial satellite capable of hovering in place using a solar sail -- this work proposes to create a dynamic orbital slingshot in anticipation of Interstellar Objects (ISOs) passing…

A concept for an Impact Mitigation Preparation Mission, called Don Quijote, is to send two spacecraft to a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA): an Orbiter and an Impactor. The Impactor collides with the asteroid while the Orbiter measures the…

Missions to rendezvous with or capture an asteroid present significant interest both from a geophysical and safety point of view. They are key to the understanding of our solar system are as well stepping stones for interplanetary human…

So far, more than 130 extrasolar planets have been found in multiple stellar systems. Dynamical simulations show that the outcome of the planetary formation process can lead to different planetary architectures (i.e. location, size, mass,…

In the past two decades an increasing interest in discovering Near Earth Objects has been noted in the astronomical community. Dedicated surveys have been operated for data acquisition and processing, resulting in the present discovery of…

An increasing number of Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) in the range of a few hundred meters to a few kilometres in size have relatively high spin rates, from less than 4 h, down to $\sim$2.2 h, depending on spectral type. For some of these…

We have made an extensive search for grouping amongst the near Earth asteroids (NEAs). We used two D- functions and rigorous cluster analysis approach. We have found sev- eral new groups (associations) among the NEAs: the objects moving on…

A number of Earth co-orbital asteroids experience repeated transitions between the quasi-satellite and horseshoe dynamical states. Asteroids 2001 GO2, 2002 AA29, 2003 YN107 and 2015 SO2 are well-documented cases of such a dynamical…

Deflection missions to near-Earth asteroids will encounter non-negligible uncertainties in the physical and orbital parameters of the target object. In order to reliably assess future impact threat mitigation operations such uncertainties…

Asteroids are leftover pieces from the era of planet formation that help us understand conditions in the early Solar System. Unlike larger planetary bodies that were subject to global thermal modification during and subsequent to their…

Mean motion resonances play a fundamental role in the dynamics of the small bodies of the Solar System. The last decades of the 20th century gave us a detailed description of the dynamics as well as the process of capture of small bodies in…