Related papers: Target selection for Near-Earth Asteroids in-orbit…
Estimates for asteroid masses are based on their gravitational perturbations on the orbits of other objects such as Mars, spacecraft, or other asteroids and/or their satellites. In the case of asteroid-asteroid perturbations, this leads to…
This study is carried out in the framework of sample-return missions to asteroids that use a low-speed projectile as the primary component of its sampling mechanism (e.g., JAXA's Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 missions). We perform numerical…
Near-Earth small-body mission targets 162173 Ryugu, 101955 Bennu, and 25143 Itokawa produce gravity fields around 4 orders of magnitude below that of Earth and their irregular shapes, combined with rotational effects produce varying surface…
NASA's DART and ESA's Hera missions offer a unique opportunity to investigate the delivery of impact ejecta to other celestial bodies. We performed ejecta dynamical simulations using 3 million particles categorized into three size…
Laser ablation of a Near-Earth Object (NEO) on a collision course with Earth produces a cloud of ejecta which exerts a thrust on the NEO, deflecting it from its original trajectory. Ablation may be performed from afar by illuminating an…
Asteroid mining offers the possibility to revolutionize supply of resources vital for human civilization. Preliminary analysis suggests that Near-Earth Asteroids (NEA) contain enough volatile and high value minerals to make the mining…
A method for asteroid deflection that makes use of a spacecraft moving back and forth on a segment of an appropriate Keplerian orbit about the asteroid is described and evaluated. It is shown that, on average, the spacecraft describing such…
Orbital resonances are believed to be responsible for the delivery of main belt asteroids to the inner Solar System. Several possibilities have been suggested to transport asteroids and their fragments into mean motion and secular…
Sample return from the near-Earth asteroid known as 25143 Itokawa was conducted as part of the Hayabusa mission, with a large number of scientific findings being derived from the returned samples. Following the Hayabusa mission, Hayabusa2…
Asteroid discoveries are essential for planetary-defense efforts aiming to prevent impacts with Earth, including the more frequent megaton explosions from decameter impactors. While large asteroids ($\geq$100 km) have remained in the main…
Recent studies of optimization methods and GNC of spacecraft near small bodies focusing on descent, landing, rendezvous, etc., with key safety constraints such as line-of-sight conic zones and soft landings have shown promising results;…
This paper presents a quantitative study of the evolution of the ejecta cloud released from a hypervelocity impact on a binary asteroid. We performed numerical simulations of the post-impact dynamics of the ejecta cloud in the framework of…
In recent years, nine small near-Earth asteroids were discovered a few hours before the collision with the Earth: these are about one meter in diameter objects that have all disintegrated in the atmosphere, generating bright fireballs…
We propose two algorithms to provide a full preliminary orbit of an Earth-orbiting object with a number of observations lower than the classical methods, such as those by Laplace and Gauss. The first one is the Virtual debris algorithm,…
Asteroids have called the attention of researchers around the world. Its chemical and physical composition can give us important information about the formation of our Solar System. In addition, the hypothesis of mining some of these…
This work is a theoretical study of the speed at which the material of an impacted target is ejected during the formation of an impact crater. Our model, starting from the first principle of thermodynamics, can describes the speed of the…
Orbit-determination programs find the orbit solution that best fits a set of observations by minimizing the RMS of the residuals of the fit. For near-Earth asteroids, the uncertainty of the orbit solution may be compatible with trajectories…
The under-abundance of asteroids on orbits with small perihelion distances suggests that thermally-driven disruption may be an important process in the removal of rocky bodies in the Solar System. Here we report our study of how the debris…
Extrasolar debris disks are detected by observing dust, which is thought to be released during planetesimal collisions. This implies that planetesimals are dynamically excited ("stirred"), such that collisions are sufficiently common and…
In laboratory experiments, high speed videos are used to detect and track mm-size surface particle motions caused by a low velocity normal impact into sand. Outside the final crater radius and prior to the landing of the ejecta curtain,…