Related papers: The Delicate Dance of Orbital Rendezvous
This paper presents an analytical model for collision probability assessments between de-orbiting or injecting space objects and satellite constellations. Considering the first to be subjected to a continuous tangential acceleration, its…
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 introduces a hybrid dynamical system methodology for managing impulsive control in spacecraft rendezvous and proximity operations under the Hill-Clohessy-Wiltshire model. We address the control design problem by isolating the…
The focus of this work is the current distribution of asteroids in co-orbital motion with Venus, Earth and Jupiter, under a quasi-coplanar configuration and for a medium-term timescale of the order of 900 years. A co-orbital trajectory is a…
Mercury is the target of two space missions: MESSENGER (NASA) which orbit insertion is planned for March 2011, and ESA/JAXA BepiColombo, that should be launched in 2014. Their instruments will observe the surface of the planet with a high…
During the last stages of the terrestrial planet formation, planets grow mainly through giant-impacts with large planetary embryos. The Earth's Moon was suggested to form through one of these impacts. However, since the proto-Earth has…
This paper deals with the impulsive formation control of spacecraft in the presence of constraints on the position vector and time. Determining a set of path constraints can increase the safety and reliability in an impulsive relative…
Recent works demonstrated that the dynamics caused by the planetary oblateness coupled with the solar radiation pressure can be described through a model based on singly-averaged equations of motion. The coupled perturbations affect the…
We study a quantum ladder of interacting fermions with coupled s and p orbitals. Such a model describes dipolar molecules or atoms loaded into a double-well optical lattice, dipole moments being aligned by an external field. The two orbital…
In the leading theory of lunar formation, known as the giant impact hypothesis, a collision between two planet-size objects resulted in a young Earth surrounded by a circumplanetary debris disk from which the Moon later accreted. The range…
We study the spin evolution of close-in planets in multi-body systems and present a very general formulation of the spin-orbit problem. This includes a simple way to probe the spin dynamics from the orbital perturbations, a new method for…
Magnetic reconnection requires the violation of the frozen-in condition which ties gyrating charged particles to the magnetic field inhibiting diffusion. Ongoing reconnection has been identified in near-Earth space as being responsible for…
The Sun's equator and the planets' orbital planes are nearly aligned, which is presumably a consequence of their formation from a single spinning gaseous disk. For exoplanetary systems this well-aligned configuration is not guaranteed:…
Building and maintaining a catalog of resident space objects involves several tasks, ranging from observations to data analysis. Once acquired, the knowledge of a space object needs to be updated following a dedicated observing schedule.…
Orbital debris is a pressing problem which presents a danger to global space operations and a barrier to continued development of the space economy and space infrastructure. As research continues regarding orbital debris, there is a need…
The discovery of giant planets orbiting close to their host stars was one of the most unexpected results of early exoplanetary science. Astronomers have since found that a significant fraction of these 'Hot Jupiters' move on orbits…
The minimum orbital intersection distance is used as a measure to assess potential close approaches and collision risks between astronomical objects. Methods to calculate this quantity have been proposed in several previous publications.…
Divergent migration of planets within a viscous circumstellar disk can engender resonance crossings and dramatic excitation of orbital eccentricities. We provide quantitative criteria for the viability of this mechanism. For the orbits of…
Following the discovery that asteroid (3753) Cruithne was a coorbital companion of the Earth, a new theory of coorbital motion has been developed whereby planets or satellites can maintain companion objects in the same orbit as themselves.…
We investigate a repulsion mechanism between two low-mass planets migrating in a protoplanetary disk, for which the relative migration switches from convergent to divergent. This mechanism invokes density waves emitted by one planet…