Related papers: Planetary Exploration Using CubeSat Deployed Sailp…
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…
In addition to conventional ground rovers, the Mars 2020 mission will send a helicopter to Mars. The copter's high-resolution data helps the rover to identify small hazards such as steps and pointy rocks, as well as providing rich textual…
Recent advances in miniaturization and commercial availability of critical satellite subsystems and detector technology have made small satellites (SmallSats, including CubeSats) an attractive, low-cost potential solution for space weather…
Mars, lacking an intrinsic dynamo, is an ideal laboratory to comparatively study induced magnetospheres, which can be found in other terrestrial bodies as well as comets. Additionally, Mars is of particular interest to further exploration…
One of the fundamental limiting factors in planetary exploration is the autonomous capabilities of planetary exploration rovers. This study proposes a novel methodology for trustworthy autonomous multi-robot teams which incorporates data…
Soil assessment is important for mobile robot planning and navigation on natural and planetary environments. Terramechanic characteristics can be inferred from the thermal behaviour of soils under the influence of sunlight using remote…
Mapping and exploration of a Martian terrain with an aerial vehicle has become an emerging research direction, since the successful flight demonstration of the Mars helicopter Ingenuity. Although the autonomy and navigation capability of…
In this paper, we assess the scientific promise and technology feasibility of distributed instruments for planetary science. A distributed instrument is an instrument designed to collect spatially and temporally correlated data from…
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…
Onboard localization capabilities for planetary rovers to date have used relative navigation, by integrating combinations of wheel odometry, visual odometry, and inertial measurements during each drive to track position relative to the…
The recent, rapid advancement in space exploration is thanks to the accelerated miniaturization of electronics components on a spacecraft that is reducing the mass, volume and cost of satellites. Yet, access to space remains a distant dream…
Planetary rover exploration is attracting renewed interest with several upcoming space missions to the Moon and Mars. However, a substantial amount of data from prior missions remain underutilized for path planning and autonomous navigation…
Performing orbital insertion around Mars using aerocapture instead of a propulsive orbit insertion manoeuvre allows to save resources and/or increase the payload mass fraction. Aerocapture has never been employed to date because of the high…
The article is a short overview of a proposal of a CubeSat type nanosatellite designed to conduct biopharmaceutical tests on the low earth orbit. Motivations behind the emerging demand for such solution nowadays and in the close future are…
CubeSats are small satellites built in standard sizes and form factors, which have been growing in popularity but have thus far been largely ignored within the field of astronomy. When deployed as space-based telescopes, they enable science…
Wheeled planetary rovers such as the Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) and Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) have provided unprecedented, detailed images of the Mars surface. However, these rovers are large and are of high-cost as they need to…
In recent years, robotic exploration has become increasingly important in planetary exploration. One area of particular interest for exploration is Martian lava tubes, which have several distinct features of interest. First, it is theorized…
So far, planetary surface exploration depends on various mobile robot platforms. The autonomous navigation and decision-making of these mobile robots in complex terrains largely rely on their terrain-aware perception, localization and…
The wide availability of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) electronics that can withstand Low Earth Orbit conditions has opened avenue for wide deployment of CubeSats and small-satellites. CubeSats thanks to their low developmental and launch…
One of the main objectives of the Mars Exploration Program is to search for evidence of past or current life on the planet. To achieve this, Mars exploration has been focusing on regions that may have liquid or frozen water. A set of…