Related papers: Europa Exploration Philosophy
The exploration of asteroids and comets is important in the quest for the formation of the Solar System and it is an important step for human space travel. Moving on the surface of asteroids is challenging for future robotic explorers due…
Here we describe the mission design for SMART-2/LISA Pathfinder. The best trade-off between the requirements of a low-disturbance environment and communications distance is found to be a free-insertion Lissajous orbit around the first…
Autonomous exploration is a fundamental problem for various applications of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Recently, LiDAR-based exploration has gained significant attention due to its ability to generate high-precision point cloud maps…
I present a case for proposed future linear and circular lepton colliders as ideal machines for understanding and exploration. As machines for understanding, they provide unprecedented tools for studying the Higgs and observing phenomena…
The investigation of the emergence of life is a major endeavour of science. Astronomy is contributing to it in three fundamental manners: (1) by measuring the chemical enrichment of the Universe, (2) by investigating planet formation and…
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…
Spacecraft formation flying serves as a method of astronomical instrumentation that enables the construction of large virtual structures in space. The formation-flying interferometry generally requires very-high control accuracy, and…
Currently, industrial sectors are transforming their business processes into e-services and component-based architectures to build flexible, robust, and scalable systems, and reduce integration-related maintenance and development costs.…
Robot-aided exploration of planetary surfaces is essential for understanding geologic processes, yet many scientifically valuable regions, such as Martian dunes and lunar craters, remain hazardous due to loose, deformable regolith. We…
Quantum robots are described as mobile quantum computers and ancillary systems that move in and interact with arbitrary environments. Their dynamics is given as tasks which consist of sequences of alternating computation and action phases.…
The development and deployment of interstellar missions will without doubt require orders of magnitude more resources than needed for current or past megaprojects (Apollo, Iter, LHC,...). Question is how enough resources for such…
The next generation of space-based experiments will go hunting for answers to cosmology's key open questions which revolve around inflation, dark matter and dark energy. Low earth orbit and lunar missions within the European Space Agency's…
The Arcanum mission is a proposed L-class spacecraft that highlights the revolutionary approach which can now be taken to future space mission design. Using the case of the SpaceX Starship vehicle and in particular the high mass and volume…
A moon or natural satellite is a celestial body that orbits a planetary body such as a planet, dwarf planet, or an asteroid. Scientists seek understanding the origin and evolution of our solar system by studying moons of these bodies.…
The discovery of extra-solar planets is one of the greatest achievements of modern astronomy. The detection of planets with a wide range of masses demonstrates that extra-solar planets of low mass exist. In this paper we describe a mission,…
(Abridged) We discuss the design considerations of the EXPLORE (EXtra-solar PLanet Occultation REsearch) project, a series of transiting planet searches using 4-m-class telescopes to continuously monitor a single field of stars in the…
Although wheeled robots have been predominant for planetary exploration, their geometry limits their capabilities when traveling over steep slopes, through rocky terrains, and in microgravity. Legged robots equipped with grippers are a…
Current time-domain wide-field sky surveys generally operate with few-degree-sized fields and take many individual images to cover large sky areas each night. We present the design and project status of the Evryscope ("wide-seer"), which…
The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) survey is a ground-based program designed to search for transiting exoplanets orbiting relatively bright stars. To achieve this, the KELT Science Team operates two planets facilities -…
Underground laboratories provide the low radioactive background environment necessary to explore the highest energy scales that cannot be reached with accelerators, by searching for extremely rare phenomena. I have requested to the…