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The surface and subsurface of worlds beyond Mars remain largely unexplored. Yet these worlds hold keys to fundamental questions in planetary science - from potentially habitable subsurface oceans on icy moons to ancient records preserved in…
The recent discovery of the first confirmed Interstellar Objects (ISOs) passing through the Solar System on clearly hyperbolic objects opens the potential for near term ISO missions, either to the two known objects, or to similar objects…
We present a study of an impacting descent probe that increases the science return of spacecraft orbiting or passing an atmosphere-less planetary body of the solar system, such as the Galilean moons of Jupiter. The descent probe is a…
The catalog of km-sized near-Earth objects (NEOs) is nearly complete. Typical impact monitoring analyses search for possible impacts over the next 100 years and none of the km-sized objects represent an impact threat over that time…
The population of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) shows a large variety of objects in terms of physical and dynamical properties. They are subject to planetary encounters and to strong solar wind and radiation effects. Their study is also…
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…
Advances in planetary robotics have led to wheeled robots that have beamed back invaluable science data from the surface of the Moon and Mars. However, these large wheeled robots are unable to access rugged environments such as cliffs,…
A significant opportunity for synergy between pure research and asteroid resource research exists. We provide an overview of the state of the art in asteroid resource utilization, and highlight where we can accelerate the closing of…
The computation of the Minimum Orbital Intersection Distance (MOID) is an old, but increasingly relevant problem. Fast and precise methods for MOID computation are needed to select potentially hazardous asteroids from a large catalogue. The…
We determine the possible detection rate of asteroids with the Bering mission. In particular we examine the outcome of the Bering mission in relation to the populations of Near-Earth Asteroids and main belt asteroids. This is done by…
This study is carried out in the framework of sample-return missions to asteroids that use a low-speed projectile as the primary component of its sampling mechanism (e.g., JAXA's Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 missions). We perform numerical…
Hydrated minerals are tracers of early solar system history, and have been proposed as a possible focus for economic activity in space. Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are important to both of these, especially the most accessible members of that…
We studied the creep motion of granular materials in a gradient potential field that is created using a slow spin-up experiment device. Natural sand confined in the acrylic box is spun up by a controlled turntable and the surface flows are…
We study the dynamical and collisional evolution of Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) in Main Belt-crossing orbits (NEACs). We select NEACs with H < 18 and integrate their orbits for 1e7 yr with N-body simulations. Objects are grouped by initial…
Interstellar objects (ISOs) represent a compelling and under-explored category of celestial bodies, providing physical laboratories to understand the formation of our solar system and probe the composition and properties of material formed…
Planets interact with their host stars through gravity, radiation and magnetic fields, and for those giant planets that orbit their stars within ~10 stellar radii (~0.1 AU for a sun-like star), star-planet interactions (SPI) are observable…
Over a couple of decades, space junk has increased rapidly, which has caused significant threats to the LEO operation satellites. An Active Debris Removal $(ADR)$ concept continuously evolves for space junk removal. One of the ADR methods…
We discuss a possibility to survey many Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO) with a single launch using a few smallscale spacecraft, each equipped with solar sails, which could be unfurled from a single interplanetary bus at the perihelion of that…
We discuss the in-flight autonomous assembly as the means to build advanced planetary science payloads to explore the outer regions of the solar system. These payloads are robotically constructed from modular parts delivered by a group of…
We present a practical and effective method of planetary defense that allows for extremely short mitigation time scales if required as well as long time scale mitigation. This one system allows for virtually any required defense mode. In…