Related papers: A Fast Response Mission to Rendezvous with an Inte…

We discuss the in-flight autonomous assembly as the means to build advanced planetary science payloads to explore the outer regions of the solar system. These payloads are robotically constructed from modular parts delivered by a group of…

1I/'Oumuamua (or 1I) and 2I/Borisov (or 2I), the first InterStellar Objects (ISOs) discovered passing through the solar system, have opened up entirely new areas of exobody research. Finding additional ISOs and planning missions to…

We describe how the ESA Comet Interceptor mission, which is due to launch in 2028/29 to a yet-to-be-discovered target, can provide a conceptual basis for a future mission to visit an Interstellar Object. Comet Interceptor will wait in space…

Recently, we witnessed how the synergy of small satellite technology and solar sailing propulsion enables new missions. Together, small satellites with lightweight instruments and solar sails offer affordable access to deep regions of the…

Small satellite systems enable whole new class of missions for navigation, communications, remote sensing and scientific research for both civilian and military purposes. As individual spacecraft are limited by the size, mass and power…

Leveraging advancements in micro-scale technology, we propose a fleet of autonomous, low-cost, small solar sails for interplanetary exploration. The Berkeley Low-cost Interplanetary Solar Sail (BLISS) project aims to utilize small-scale…

The High Inclination Solar Mission (HISM) is a concept for an out-of-the-ecliptic mission for observing the Sun and the heliosphere. The mission profile is largely based on the Solar Polar Imager concept: initially spiraling in to a 0.48 AU…

The recently discovered first high velocity hyperbolic objects passing through the Solar System, 1I/'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, have raised the question about near term missions to Interstellar Objects. In situ spacecraft exploration of these…

We discuss a possibility to survey many Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO) with a single launch using a few smallscale spacecraft, each equipped with solar sails, which could be unfurled from a single interplanetary bus at the perihelion of that…

Motivated by recent visits from interstellar comets, along with continuing discoveries of minor bodies in orbit of the Sun, this paper studies the capture of objects on initially hyperbolic orbits by our solar system. Using an ensemble of…

We simulate the passage through the Sun-Jupiter system of interstellar objects (ISOs) similar to 1I/`Oumuamua or 2I/Borisov. Capture of such objects is rare and overwhelmingly from low incoming speeds onto orbits akin to those of known…

Natural (such as lunar) occultations have long been used to study sources on small angular scales, while coronographs have been used to study high contrast sources. We propose launching the Improved Resolution and Image Selection (IRIS)…

We present our proposal for a small X-ray mission DIOS (Diffuse Intergalactic Oxygen Surveyor) to perform survey observations of warm-hot intergalactic medium using OVII and OVIII emission lines. This will be proposed to a small satellite…

Interstellar object (ISO) astronomy has rapidly emerged over the past decade as a new frontier in planetary astrophysics, yet current observations remain limited by short visibility windows, inference degeneracies and fragmented follow-up…

Interest in the exploration of, and the establishment of a human settlement, on Mars is rapidly growing. To achieve this, rapid transit will be required to bring crucial cargo. Current missions to Mars take 150 days, which would be too long…

The Solar sail is a large thin film used to collect solar light pressure for moving of space apparatus. Unfortunately, the solar radiation pressure is very small about 9 mkN/sq.m at Earth's orbit. However, the light force significantly…

The Space Interferometry Mission (SIM), with its launch date planned for 2005, has as its goal astrometry with ~ 1 micro-arcsecond accuracy for stars as faint as 20th mag. If the SIM lives to expectations it can be used to measure…

NASA has been considering a solar sail that would accelerate a craft to a high velocity (~ 14 AU/yr) by the time it reached 5 AU. Then the sail would be dropped and the craft would coast alone to deep space. We propose that the sail be…

With interstellar mission concepts now being under study by various space agencies and institutions, a feasible and worthy interstellar precursor mission concept will be key to the success of the long shot. Here we investigate…

The Solar Close Observations and Proximity Experiments (SCOPE) mission will send a spacecraft into the solar atmosphere at a low altitude of just 5 R_sun from the solar center. It aims to elucidate the mechanisms behind solar eruptions and…