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Late accretion is a process that strongly modulated surface geomorphic and geochemical features of Mercury. Yet, the fate of the impactors and their effects on Mercury's surface through the bombardment epoch are not clear. Using Monte-Carlo…

Humanity's path to avoiding extinction is a daunting and inevitable challenge which proves difficult to solve, partially due to the lack of data and evidence surrounding the concept. We aim to address this confusion by addressing the most…

The recent growth of the space sector, spurred by a surge in private actors, has led to a sharp increase in our ability to address societal challenges through space data. However, this has exacerbated an already critical situation in space:…

Continuous habitability of a planet is a critical condition for advanced forms of life to appear, but it can be endangered by astronomical events such as stellar encounters. The purpose of this study is to analyze close stellar encounters…

The Earth is impacted by 35-40 metre-scale objects every year. These meteoroids are the low mass end of impactors that can do damage on the ground. Despite this they are very poorly surveyed and characterised, too infrequent for ground…

In recent years, industry has produced high-temperature fiber and whiskers. The author examined the atmospheric reentry of the USA Space Shuttles and proposed the use of high temperature tolerant parachute for atmospheric air braking.…

Mars is the next destination after Earth to support terrestrial life. Decades of Mars exploration has fascinated space explorers to endeavour for a human expedition. But human Mars enterprise is complicated than conventional mission as the…

By using recent observations of the Dydimos-Dimorphos system from the Hubble Space Telescope, 37 boulders with a size of 4 to 7 meters ejected from the system during the impact with the DART spacecraft were identified. In this work, we…

Cosmic radiation backgrounds are a constraint on life, and their distribution will affect the Galactic Habitable Zone. Life on Earth has developed in the context of these backgrounds, and characterizing event rates will elaborate the…

A co-orbital asteroid shares the orbit of a secondary body about its primary. Though more commonly encountered as an asteroid that shares a planet's orbit around the Sun, a co-orbital asteroid could similarly share the orbit of the Moon…

We present a study of an impacting descent probe that increases the science return of spacecraft orbiting or passing an atmosphere-less planetary body of the solar system, such as the Galilean moons of Jupiter. The descent probe is a…

Currently, 20 co-orbital asteroids of Venus are known, with only one with an eccentricity below 0.38. This is most likely caused by observational biases since asteroids with larger eccentricities may approach the Earth and are easier to…

The interaction of a space system with its orbital environment is a major consideration in the design of any space system, since a variety of hazards are associated with the operation of spacecraft in the harsh space environment. In this…

Exploration of asteroids and small-bodies can provide valuable insight into the origins of the solar system, into the origins of Earth and the origins of the building blocks of life. However, the low-gravity and unknown surface conditions…

Apophis' current trajectory takes it safely past our planet at a distance of several Earth radii on 2029 April 13. Here the possibility is considered that Apophis could collide with a small asteroid, like the ones that frequently and…

The DART spacecraft is planned to impact the secondary of the binary asteroid (65803) Didymos in 2022, to assess deflection strategies for planetary defense. The impact will create a crater and release asteroidal material, some of which…

This paper presents a strategy for control of a spacecraft docking with a non-maneuvering target in the presence of safety constraints and bounded disturbances. The presence of disturbances prevents convergence to a unique docking state, so…

Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly used to control robotic systems such as drones, but their risks of causing physical threats and harm in real-world applications remain unexplored. Our study addresses the critical gap in…

This study evaluates a technique for determining the mass of a potentially hazardous asteroid from a high-speed flyby in the context of a rapid reconnaissance planetary defense scenario. We consider a host spacecraft that dispenses a small…

When new objects are detected in the sky, an orbit determination needs to be performed immediately to find out their origin, to determine the probability of an Earth impact and possibly also to estimate the impact region on Earth. ESA's…