Related papers: Agile Systems Engineering for sub-CubeSat scale sp…
Despite efforts to stabilize CO_2 concentrations, it is possible that the climate system could respond abruptly with catastrophic consequences. Intentional intervention in the climate system to avoid or ameliorate such consequences has been…
This work presents a large-scale simulation study investigating the deployment and operation of distributed swarms of CubeSats for interplanetary missions to small celestial bodies. Utilizing Taylor numerical integration and advanced…
Quantum computers with tens to hundreds of noisy qubits are being developed today. To be useful for real-world applications, we believe that these near-term systems cannot simply be scaled-down non-error-corrected versions of future…
Designing usable products is important to provide a competitive edge through user satisfaction. A first step to establish or improve a usability process is to perform a process assessment. As this may be costly, an alternative for…
This paper presents innovative solutions to critical challenges in planetary and deep-space exploration electronics. We synthesize findings across diverse mission profiles, highlighting advances in: (1) MARTIAN positioning systems with…
[Context & motivation] Driven by the need for faster time-to-market and reduced development lead-time, large-scale systems engineering companies are adopting agile methods in their organizations. This agile transformation is challenging and…
The Satellite for Orbital Aerodynamics Research (SOAR) is a CubeSat mission, due to be launched in 2021, to investigate the interaction between different materials and the atmospheric flow regime in very low Earth orbits (VLEO). Improving…
On-orbit close proximity operations involve robotic spacecraft maneuvering and making decisions for a growing number of mission scenarios demanding autonomy, including on-orbit assembly, repair, and astronaut assistance. Of these scenarios,…
The interest in returning to the Moon for research and exploration has increased as new tipping point technologies are providing the possibility to do so. One of these initiatives is the Artemis program by NASA, which plans to return humans…
The number of small satellites has grown dramatically in the past decade from tens of satellites per year in the mid-2010s to a projection of tens of thousands in orbit by the mid-2020s. This presents both problems and opportunities for…
Innovation and entrepreneurship have a very special role to play in creating sustainable development in the world. Engineering design plays a major role in innovation. These are not new facts. However this added to the fact that in current…
This paper presents a comparative study of the applicability and accuracy of optimal control methods and neural network-based estimators in the context of porkchop plots for preliminary asteroid rendezvous mission design. The scenario…
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…
This paper presents a design for a drop tower test to evaluate a numerical model for a structurally reconfigurable spacecraft with actuatable joints, referred to as a transformable spacecraft. A mock-up robot for a 3U-sized transformable…
Realizing practical quantum computing requires overcoming a number of computation errors and the limitation of device size, which have intensively been tackled by quantum error mitigation (QEM) these days. As a unified approach of…
As modern software systems expand in scale and complexity, the challenges associated with their modeling and formulation grow increasingly intricate. Traditional approaches often fall short in effectively addressing these complexities,…
Reliable relative pose estimation is a key enabler for autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations, yet space imagery is notoriously challenging due to extreme illumination, high contrast, and fast target motion. Event cameras provide…
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…
We have developed a low-cost off-the-shelf component star sensor (StarSense) for use in minisatellites and CubeSats to determine the attitude of a satellite in orbit. StarSense is an imaging camera with a limiting magnitude of 6.5, which…
This paper describes the system design methodology derived from the development and evaluation tests of deployable solar panels to be mounted on a 3U CubeSat. The study mainly includes structural analysis, thermal analysis, and a review of…