Related papers: Mars2020 and Mars Sample Return
This paper describes the beginning of the Far-Infrared Surveyor mission study for NASA's Astrophysics Decadal 2020. We describe the scope of the study, and the open process approach of the Science and Technology Definition Team. We are…
Missions to rendezvous with or capture an asteroid present significant interest both from a geophysical and safety point of view. They are key to the understanding of our solar system are as well stepping stones for interplanetary human…
Deep space exploration offers the most profound opportunity for the expansion of humanity and our understanding of the Universe, but remains extremely challenging. Progress will continue to be paced by uncrewed missions followed up by…
Seismic anisotropy, arising from the crystallographic or lattice-preferred orientation of anisotropic minerals or the shape-preferred orientation of melts or cracks, can establish a critical link between Mars's past evolution and its…
The abstract is additional with repect to the paper published in JGCD. Ordinary Earth satellites are usually placed into five categories of special orbits: sun-synchronous orbits, orbits at the critical inclination, frozen orbits, repeating…
The rotation and orientation of Mars is commonly described using two different sets of angles, namely the Euler angles wrt the Mars orbit plane and the right ascension, declination, and prime meridian location angles wrt the Earth equator…
Juno is a NASA mission launched in 2011 with the goal of studying Jupiter. The probe will arrive to the planet in 2016 and will be placed for one year in a polar high-eccentric orbit to study the composition of the planet, the gravity and…
The Mars ambient space environment evolves with the varying solar activity. Understanding the Martian space environment, particularly the topside ionosphere across different phases of Solar Cycles (SC) 24 \& 25 remains a key research gap in…
The Low-Frequency Radio Spectrometer (LFRS) is a scientific payload onboard the Chang'e-4 lunar lander launched in December 2018. The LFRS provides in-situ measurements of the low-frequency radio phenomena on the far-side of the Moon for…
In mid-2024, asteroid 2019 UO$_{14}$ was identified as the first-ever Saturn Trojan through ground-based archival observations and numerical simulations. Trojans, including those associated with Jupiter and other planets, raise important…
Wind is the process that connects Mars' climate system. Measurements of Mars atmospheric winds from orbit would dramatically advance our understanding of Mars and help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Multiple instrument…
In recent years, there has been a significant surge of interest in Mars exploration, driven by the planet's potential for human settlement and its proximity to Earth. In this paper, we explore the performance of the LoRaWAN technology on…
The Curiosity rover recently detected a background of 0.7 ppb and spikes of 7 ppb of methane on Mars. This in situ measurement reorients our understanding of the Martian environment and its potential for life, as the current theories do not…
The Martian climate is governed by an annual cycle, that results in the condensation of CO$_{2}$ ice during winter, up to a meter thick at the pole and thousands of kilometers in extension. Water and dust may be trapped during the…
The Large UV/Optical/Infrared Surveyor (LUVOIR) mission is one of four Decadal Survey Mission Concepts studied by NASA in preparation for the US National Academies' Astro2020 Decadal Survey. This observatory has the major goal of…
Small convective vortices occur ubiquitously on Mars, frequently as dust devils, and they produce detectable signals in meteorological data -- in pressure, temperature, and wind speed and direction. In addition to being important…
Through multiple, small unmanned probes we can more efficiently capture an asteroid and return it to lunar orbit. The Asteroid Return and Exploration System (ARES) aims to make use of previously tested technology with the application of a…
Lunar retro-reflector arrays (LRAs) consisting of corner-cube reflectors (CCRs) placed on the nearside of the Moon during the Apollo era have demonstrated their longevity, cost-effectiveness, ease of deployment, and most importantly their…
Carbon dioxide clouds, which are speculated by models on solar and extra-solar planets, have been recently observed near the equator of Mars. The most comprehensive identification of Martian CO2 ice clouds has been obtained by the near-IR…
Since the first \emph{in-situ} measurements of the altitude profile of upper atmospheric density and composition carried out by the Viking lander missions during 1976, similar data were continuously gathered by MAVEN and MOM spacecraft…