Related papers: Conceptual Design of Mars Sample Return Mission Us…
Energy harvesting is the fundamental activity in almost all forms of space exploration known to humans. So far, in most cases, it is not feasible to bring, along with probe, spacecraft or rover suitable supply of fuel to cover all mission's…
This paper is the first paper of a series that will present the derivation of the modal mineralogy of Mars (M3 project) at a global scale from the near-infrared dataset acquired by the imaging spectrometer OMEGA (Observatoire pour la…
Single spacecraft missions do not measure the pristine solar wind continuously because of the spacecrafts' orbital trajectory. The infrequent spatiotemporal cadence of measurement fundamentally limits conclusions about solar…
The application of directed energy to spacecraft mission design is explored using rapid transit to Mars as the design objective. An Earth-based laser array of unprecedented size (10~m diameter) and power (100~MW) is assumed to be enabled by…
Small, low-size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions due to their affordability, attritability, and suitability for…
In future operations on the lunar surface, automated vehicles will be required to transport cargo between known locations. Such vehicles must be able to navigate precisely in safe regions to avoid natural hazards, human-constructed…
Understanding solar wind variability throughout the heliosphere is essential for fundamental space physics and future exploration of the Moon and Mars. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft has provided upstream…
Surface runoff shapes planetary landscapes, but global hydrological models often lack the resolution and flexibility to simulate dynamic surface water bodies beyond Earth. Recent studies of Mars have revealed abundant geological and…
The lunar geological record has much to tell us about the earliest history of the Solar System, the origin and evolution of the Earth-Moon system, the geological evolution of rocky planets, and the near-Earth cosmic environment throughout…
A 'planetary park' system has been suggested as a way for Mars to 'preserve' land for a multitude of purposes. These parks would represent a diverse portion of martian terrain and would be regulated to minimize human contamination and…
The principal goal of the NASA Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) and ESA Darwin mission concepts is to directly detect and characterize extrasolar terrestrial (Earth-sized) planets. This first generation of instruments is expected to provide…
Uncontrolled spacecraft will disintegrate and generate a large amount of debris in the reentry process, and ablative debris may cause potential risks to the safety of human life and property on the ground. Therefore, predicting the landing…
Modular Aerial Robot Systems (MARS) comprise multiple drone units with reconfigurable connected formations, providing high adaptability to diverse mission scenarios, fault conditions, and payload capacities. However, existing control…
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…
The visual detection and tracking of surface terrain is required for spacecraft to safely land on or navigate within close proximity to celestial objects. Current approaches rely on template matching with pre-gathered patch-based features,…
The concept of a space elevator dates back to Tsilokovsky, but they are not commonly considered in near-term plans for space exploration, perhaps because a terrestrial elevator would not be possible without considerable improvements in…
Rover localization is one of the perquisites for large scale rover exploration. In NASA's Mars 2020 mission, the Ingenuity helicopter is carried together with the rover, which is capable of obtaining high-resolution imagery of Mars terrain,…
For future human missions to Mars, it is important to study the surface radiation environment during extreme and elevated conditions. In the long term, it is mainly Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) modulated by solar activity that contributes to…
Self-replicating probes are spacecraft with the capacity to create copies of themselves. Self-replication would potentially allow for an exponential increase in the number of probes and thereby drastically improve the efficiency of space…
Surface release of radiatively active particles, with high infrared- (IR-)to-visible extinction ratios, has been proposed as a method of warming Mars. However, to warm Mars using aerosols, particles released locally must disperse globally.…