Related papers: Interplanetary Rapid Transit Missions from Earth t…
The implementation of a feasible colony on Mars has been discussed and analyzed for some time. It is noted that Mars offers all necessary in-situ resources to allow for self-sustainability, with the most efficient techniques and systems to…
Large scale directed energy offers the possibility of radical transformation in a variety of areas, including the ability to achieve relativistic flight that will enable the first interstellar missions, as well as rapid interplanetary…
Voyager 3 is a concept mission that sends a space telescope to the interstellar medium in a reasonable amount of time. Voyager 3 would take a direct image of an exoplanet using the solar gravitational lensing at the distance of 550…
The surge of deep-space probes makes it unsustainable to navigate them with standard radiometric tracking. Self-driving interplanetary satellites represent a solution to this problem. In this work, a full vision-based navigation algorithm…
In this paper we preliminarily explore the possibility of designing a dedicated satellite-based mission to measure the general relativistic gravitomagnetic Lense-Thirring effect in the gravitational field of Mars. The focus is on the…
Any rotorcraft on Mars will fly in a low pressure and dusty environment. It is well known that helicopters on Earth become highly-charged due, in part, to triboelectric effects when flying in sandy conditions. We consider the possibility…
[Abridged] It is expected that the ongoing and future space-borne planet survey missions including TESS, PLATO, and Earth 2.0 will detect thousands of small to medium-sized planets via the transit technique, including over a hundred…
The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is poised to revolutionize astrophysics and cosmology in the late 2030's by unlocking unprecedented insights into the most energetic and elusive astrophysical phenomena. The mission envisages…
This paper presents a low-thrust trajectory optimization strategy to achieve a near-circular lunar orbit for a CubeSat injected into a lunar flyby trajectory. The 12U CubeSat HORYU-VI is equipped with four Hall-effect thrusters and designed…
Transporting a heavy payload using multiple aerial robots (MARs) is an efficient manner to extend the load capacity of a single aerial robot. However, existing schemes for the multiple aerial robots transportation system (MARTS) still lack…
It is known that the shape of a planet (oblateness, rings, etc.) slightly modifies the shape of the transit light curve. The forthcoming space missions (Corot, Kepler), able to detect the transit of Earth-like planets, could a fortiori also…
The Mars Odyssey spacecraft carries two experiments which are capable of detecting cosmic gamma-ray bursts and soft gamma repeaters. Since April 2001 they have detected over 275 bursts and, in conjunction with the other spacecraft of the…
A potential crewed mission to Mars would require us to solve a number of problems, including how to protect astronauts against the devastating effects of energetic charged particles from Solar and Galactic sources. The radiation environment…
The goal of the Mars Sample Return campaign is to collect soil samples from the surface of Mars and return them to Earth for further study. The samples will be acquired and stored in metal tubes by the Perseverance rover and deposited on…
As natural access points to the subsurface, lava tubes and other caves have become premier targets of planetary missions for astrobiological analyses. Few existing robotic paradigms, however, are able to explore such challenging…
This work investigates a hybrid photovoltaic-wind-battery power system designed to sustain a Mars base under varying seasonal and climatic conditions. The Mars Climate Database was utilized to simulate the effects of seasonal changes,…
Space solar power (SSP), envisioned for decades as a solution for continuous, stable, and dynamically dispatchable clean energy, has seen tremendous interest and a number of experimental demonstrations in the last few years. A practical…
The proposed Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will survey the entire sky to locate the nearest and brightest transiting extrasolar planets with orbital periods up to about 36 days. Here we estimate the number and kind of…
Many science missions require an unobstructed view of space and a stable thermal environment but lack the technical or programmatic resources to reach orbits that satisfy these needs. This paper presents a high Earth orbit in 2:1 resonance…
Exploration of the Red Planet is essential on the way through both human colonization and establishing a habitat on the planet. Due to the high costs of space missions, the use of distributed sensor networks has been investigated to make in…