Related papers: Autonomous Multirobot Technologies for Mars Mining…
In the emerging space economy, autonomous robotic missions with specialized goals such as mapping and mining are gaining traction, with agencies and enterprises increasingly investing resources. Multirobot systems (MRS) research has…
We investigate the prospects for the past or current existence of habitable conditions deep underneath the surfaces of the Moon and Mars as well as generic bound and free-floating extrasolar rocky objects. We construct a simple model that…
Robotic spacecraft have helped expand our reach for many planetary exploration missions. Most ground mobile planetary exploration robots use wheeled or modified wheeled platforms. Although extraordinarily successful at completing intended…
The growing global demand for critical raw materials (CRMs) has highlighted the need to access difficult and hazardous environments such as abandoned underground mines. These sites pose significant challenges for conventional machinery and…
We present a simulation framework for lunar construction work involving multiple autonomous machines. The framework supports modelling of construction scenarios and autonomy solutions, execution of the scenarios in simulation, and analysis…
This paper describes some results of research on associate systems: knowledge-based systems that flexibly and adaptively support their human users in carrying out complex, time-dependent problem-solving tasks under uncertainty. Based on…
The task of designing a city-state of one million residents on the planet Mars seemingly approaches the limit of perceived human ingenuity. A city-state on Mars of this capacity requires us to conform to and master the simplest aspects of…
Aerial navigation on Mars requires vision-based pipelines that are robust to the diverse illumination conditions and terrain morphology of the Martian surface. A key bottleneck for training and evaluating such methods is the scarcity of…
This paper presents a load control algorithm for control of energy sources and loads to enhance energy sustainability and reliability of the International Space Station (ISS), which is a large spacecraft in orbit around Earth. In this…
There is a growing number of Earth's co-orbital bodies being discovered. At least five of them are known to be temporarily in quasi-satellite orbits. One of those, 469219 Kamo'oalewa, was identified as possibly having the same composition…
Early Mars climate research has well-defined goals (Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group 2018). Achieving these goals requires geologists and climate modelers to coordinate. Coordination is easier if results are expressed in terms of…
This paper is the first paper of a series that will present the derivation of the modal mineralogy of Mars (M3 project) at a global scale from the near-infrared dataset acquired by the imaging spectrometer OMEGA (Observatoire pour la…
The UN Office of Outer Space Affairs identifies synergy of space development activities and international cooperation through data and infrastructure sharing in their Sustainable Development Goal 17 (SDG17). Current multilateral space…
Autonomous Science is a field of study which aims to extend the autonomy of exploration robots from low level functionality, such as on-board perception and obstacle avoidance, to science autonomy, which allows scientists to specify…
Asteroid restructuring uses robotics, self replication, and mechanical automatons to autonomously restructure an asteroid into a large rotating space station. The restructuring process makes structures from asteroid oxide materials; uses…
While multi-robot systems have been broadly researched and deployed, their success is built chiefly upon the dependency on network infrastructures, whether wired or wireless. Aiming at the first steps toward de-coupling the application of…
A foundational model has been developed based on trends built from empirical data of space exploration and computing power through the first six plus decades of the Space Age which projects earliest possible launch dates for human-crewed…
Humanity has the knowledge to solve its problems but lacks the moral insight to implement these ideas on a global scale. New moral insight can be obtained through transformative experiences that allow us to examine and refine our underlying…
The application of directed energy to spacecraft mission design is explored using rapid transit to Mars as the design objective. An Earth-based laser array of unprecedented size (10~m diameter) and power (100~MW) is assumed to be enabled by…
Orbital debris is a nonlinear control problem in a stratified orbital environment, not a static inventory. This paper develops a reduced-order shell-and-size framework that connects collision-rate scaling, fragment-production gain, natural…