Related papers: Autonomous Multirobot Technologies for Mars Mining…
Mars is the next milestone in human exploration. However, there are still several challenges that must be assessed to ensure appropriate conditions in a future settlement. Communications services will be essential for this task, providing…
We assess the possibility of reducing the travel time of a crewed mission to Mars by examining four different propulsion methods and keeping the mass at departure under 2500 tonne, for a fixed architecture. We evaluated representative…
In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) is one of the key technologies for enabling sustainable access to the Moon. The ability to excavate lunar regolith is the first step in making lunar resources accessible and usable. This work presents the…
The renewed global interest in lunar exploration requires new orbital strategies to ensure flight safety which can benefit extended lunar missions and service a plethora of planned instruments in the lunar orbit and surface. We investigate…
To build a sustainable and affordable space transportation system for human space exploration, the design and deployment of space infrastructures are critical; one attractive and promising infrastructure system is the in-situ resource…
Establishing lunar infrastructure is paramount to long-term habitation on the Moon. To meet the demand for future lunar infrastructure development, we present CraterGrader, a novel system for autonomous robotic earthmoving tasks within…
The Artemis program requires robotic and crewed lunar rovers for resource prospecting and exploitation, construction and maintenance of facilities, and human exploration. These rovers must support navigation for 10s of kilometers (km) from…
Future missions to Mars and Venus will make use of aerobraking and aerocapture in order to gain mass through the saving of fuel at planetary arrival. So far only aerobraking has been demonstrated, if the Mars Premier project has paved the…
Exploration of extreme or remote environments such as Mars is often recognized as an opportunity for multi-robot systems. However, this poses challenges for maintaining robust inter-robot communication without preexisting infrastructure. It…
Mars is the next frontier after Moon for space explorers to demonstrate the extent of human expedition and technology beyond low-earth orbit. Government space agencies as well as private space sectors are extensively endeavouring for a…
Exploration of terrestrial planets such as Mars are conducted using orbiters, landers and rovers. Cameras and instruments onboard orbiters have enabled global mapping of Mars at low spatial resolution. Landers and rovers such as the Mars…
Exploration of the Red Planet is essential on the way through both human colonization and establishing a habitat on the planet. Due to the high costs of space missions, the use of distributed sensor networks has been investigated to make in…
The discovery of ice deposits in the permanently shadowed craters of the lunar North and South Pole Moon presents an important opportunity for In-Situ Resource Utilization. These ice deposits maybe the source for sustaining a lunar base or…
The goal of the Mars Sample Return campaign is to collect soil samples from the surface of Mars and return them to Earth for further study. The samples will be acquired and stored in metal tubes by the Perseverance rover and deposited on…
Despite the significant attention that aerial base stations (ABSs) have received recently, their practical implementation is severely weakened by their limited endurance due to the battery constraints of drones. To overcome this fundamental…
Robots are becoming more and more commonplace in many industry settings. This successful adoption can be partly attributed to (1) their increasingly affordable cost and (2) the possibility of developing intelligent, software-driven robots.…
This paper presents a self-contained system for the robust utilization of aerial robots in the autonomous exploration of cave environments to help human explorers, first responders, and speleologists. The proposed system is generally…
With the ever growing number of space debris in orbit, the need to prevent further space population is becoming more and more apparent. Refueling, servicing, inspection and deorbiting of spacecraft are some example missions that require…
The lunar geological record has much to tell us about the earliest history of the Solar System, the origin and evolution of the Earth-Moon system, the geological evolution of rocky planets, and the near-Earth cosmic environment throughout…
This document presents the study conducted during the European Moon Rover System Pre-Phase A project, in which we have developed a lunar rover system, with a modular approach, capable of carrying out different missions with different…