Related papers: The Benefits of Very Low Earth Orbit for Earth Obs…

Challenging space missions include those at very low altitudes, where the atmosphere is source of aerodynamic drag on the spacecraft that finally defines the missions lifetime unless way to compensate for it is provided. This environment is…

The residual atmospheric drag on satellites in Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) has been recognized as a limiting factor for satellite lifetimes. This work focuses on one component of the drag, i.e., the ionospheric drag from charged particles,…

Meteor and bolide phenomena caused by the atmospheric ablation of incoming meteoroids are predicted to occur at the planet Venus. Their systematic observation would allow to measure and compare the sub-mm to m meteoroid flux at different…

Aerocapture is a maneuver which uses aerodynamic drag to slow down a spacecraft in a single pass through the atmosphere. All planetary orbiters to date have used propulsive orbit insertion. Aerocapture is a promising alternative, especially…

Selected by NASA for an Astrophysics Science SmallSat study, The Virtual Telescope for X-Ray Observations (VTXO) is a small satellite mission being developed by NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and New Mexico State University…

Orbital debris in low Earth orbit (LEO) are now sufficiently dense that the use of LEO space is threatened by runaway collisional cascading. A problem predicted more than thirty years ago, the threat from debris larger than about 1 cm…

Ground-based telescopes coupled with adaptive optics (AO) have been playing a leading role in exoplanet direct imaging science and technological development for the past two decades and will continue to have an indispensable role for the…

Ground-based adaptive optics (AO) in the infrared has made exceptional advances in approaching space-like image quality at higher collecting area. Optical-wavelength applications are now also growing in scope. We therefore provide here a…

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks are rapidly gaining traction today. Although several real-world deployments exist, our preliminary analysis of LEO topology performance with the soon-to-be operational Inter-Satellite Links (ISLs)…

Traveling at constant velocity is the most efficient trajectory for most robotics applications. Unfortunately without accelerometer excitation, monocular Visual-Inertial Odometry (VIO) cannot observe scale and suffers severe error drift.…

The Mini-EUSO instrument is a UV telescope to be placed inside the International Space Station (ISS), looking down on the Earth from a nadir-facing window in the Russian Zvezda module. Mini-EUSO will map the earth in the UV range (300 - 400…

Earth Observation (EO) data encompass a vast range of remotely sensed information, featuring multi-sensor and multi-temporal, playing an indispensable role in understanding our planet's dynamics. Recently, Vision Language Models (VLMs) have…

Large low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite networks are being built to provide low-latency broadband Internet access to a global subscriber base. In addition to network transmissions, researchers have proposed embedding compute resources in…

We focus on preventing collisions between debris and debris, for which there is no current, effective mitigation strategy. We investigate the feasibility of using a medium-powered (5 kW) ground-based laser combined with a ground-based…

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Earth Observation (EO) satellites have changed the way we monitor Earth. Acting like moving cameras, EO satellites are formed in constellations with different missions and priorities, and capture vast data that needs…

While building up a catalog of Earth orbiting objects, if the available optical observations are sparse, not deliberate follow ups of specific objects, no orbit determination is possible without previous correlation of observations obtained…

Adaptive optics is a technique mostly used on large telescopes. It turns out to be challenging for smaller telescopes (0.5~2m) due to the small isoplanatic angle, small subapertures and high correction speeds needed at visible wavelengths,…

This paper presents a strategy for optimal manoeuvre design of multi-satellite formation flying in low Earth orbit environment, with the aim of providing a tool for mission operation design. The proposed methodology for formation flying…

The exponential rise in small-satellites and CubeSats in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) poses important challenges for future space traffic management. At altitudes of 600 km and lower, aerodynamic drag accelerates de-orbiting of satellites.…

A multi-purpose low-earth-orbit system of rings circling the earth - the "LEO ARCHIPELAGO" - is proposed as a means of solving or bypassing many major problems hindering man's quest to get into space. A fiber-optic ring about the earth…