Related papers: Lessons learned from (and since) the Voyager 2 fly…
In the nearly 60 years of spaceflight we have accomplished wonderful feats of exploration that have shown the incredible spirit of the human drive to explore and understand our universe. Yet in those 60 years we have barely left our solar…
This paper investigates the mission planning problem for spacecraft confronting orbital debris to achieve autonomous avoidance. Firstly, combined with the avoidance requirements, a closed-loop framework of autonomous avoidance for orbital…
The main objective of this chapter is to present an overview of the different areas of key technologies that will be needed to fly the technically most challenging of the representative missions identified in chapter 4 (the Pillar 2 Horizon…
Mars is the next destination after Earth to support terrestrial life. Decades of Mars exploration has fascinated space explorers to endeavour for a human expedition. But human Mars enterprise is complicated than conventional mission as the…
The past three decades have seen prodigious advances in astronomy and astrophysics. Beginning with the exploration of our solar system and continuing through the pioneering Explorers and Great Observatories of today, NASA missions have made…
Aerocapture is the technique of using planetary atmospheres to decelerate a spacecraft in a single pass to achieve nearly fuel-free orbit insertion. Aerocapture has been extensively studied since the 1980s but has never been flown yet. The…
The Voyager probes are the furthest, still active, spacecraft ever launched from Earth. During their 38-year trip, they have collected data regarding solar wind properties (such as the plasma velocity and magnetic field intensity).…
Understanding planetary habitability is one of the major challenges of the current scientific era, particularly given the discovery of a large and diverse terrestrial exoplanet population. Discerning the primary factors that contribute to…
Autonomous spacecraft relative navigation technology has been planned for and applied to many famous space missions. The development of on-board electronics systems has enabled the use of vision-based and LiDAR-based methods to achieve…
Our understanding of the processes that are relevant to the formation and maintenance of habitable planetary systems is advancing at a rapid pace, both from observation and theory. The present review focuses on recent research that bears on…
Astronomy is changing. Large projects, large collaborations, and large budgets are becoming the norm. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is one example of this new astronomy, and in operating the original survey, we put in place and…
The successful transition of research to operations (R2O) and operations to research (O2R) requires, above all, interaction between the two communities. We explore the role that close interaction and ongoing communication played in the…
The rapid development of robotics has benefited by more and more people putting their attention to it. With the demand for robots is growing for the purpose of fulfilling tasks instead of humans, how to control the robot better is becoming…
Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become a focal point of research, with both established companies and startups investing heavily in their development. This paper presents our iterative process in developing a robust autonomous…
One of the most critical features for the successful operation of autonomous UAVs is the ability to make decisions based on the information acquired from their surroundings. Each UAV must be able to make decisions during the flight in order…
Recent technological advancements in small-scale unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have led to the development of companion UAVs. Similar to conventional companion robots, companion UAVs have the potential to assist us in our daily lives and…
Stars formed in clusters can encounter other stars at close distances. In typical open clusters in the Solar neighbourhood containing hundreds or thousands of member stars, ten to twenty per cent of Solar-mass member stars are expected to…
Detection and orbit determination for thousands of planets with periods up to about 40 years would be obtained by astrometry from two Gaia-like missions, results which cannot be obtained by any other mission, planned or proposed. A billion…
Radio pulsars have been responsible for many astonishing astrophysical and fundamental physics breakthroughs since their discovery 50 years ago. In this review I will discuss many of the highlights, most of which were only possible because…
Uranus and Neptune form a distinct class of planets in our solar system. Given this fact, and ubiquity of similar-mass planets in other planetary systems, it is essential to understand their interior structure and composition. However,…