Related papers: Shallow Encounters' Impact on Asteroid Deflection …
The space environment around the Earth is populated by more than 130 million objects of 1 mm in size and larger, and future predictions shows that this amount is destined to increase, even if mitigation measures are implemented at a far…
Space missions that use low-thrust propulsion technology are becoming increasingly popular since they utilize propellant more efficiently and thus reduce mission costs. However, optimizing continuous-thrust trajectories is complex,…
In autonomous driving, accurate motion prediction is crucial for safe and efficient motion planning. To ensure safety, planners require reliable uncertainty estimates of the predicted behavior of surrounding agents, yet this aspect has…
The overall shape, internal structure and surface morphology of small bodies such as asteroids and comets are determined to a large degree by the last global-scale impact or disruption event. Depending on the specific energy, impacts lead…
An accurate trajectory prediction is crucial for safe and efficient autonomous driving in complex traffic environments. In recent years, artificial intelligence has shown strong capabilities in improving prediction accuracy. However, its…
This paper presents a novel approach to the robust design of deflection actions for Near Earth Objects (NEO). In particular, the case of deflection by means of Solar-pumped Laser ablation is studied here in detail. The basic idea behind…
Aims: We compare the apparent difference in timing of transiting planets (or eclipsing binaries) that are observed from widely separated locations (parallactic delay). Methods: A simple geometrical argument allow us to show that the…
Models for vehicle dynamics play an important role in maneuver planning for automated driving. They are used to derive trajectories from given control inputs, or to evaluate a given trajectory in terms of constraint violation or optimality…
Asteroids are leftover pieces from the era of planet formation that help us understand conditions in the early Solar System. Unlike larger planetary bodies that were subject to global thermal modification during and subsequent to their…
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;…
Asteroid collisions are one of the main processes responsible for the evolution of bodies in the main belt. Using observations of the Dimorphos impact by the DART spacecraft, we estimate how asteroid collisions in the main belt may look in…
Space debris is a major threat to the satellite infrastructure. A collision with even small particle, e.g. 1 cm of size, can cause a catastrophic event when the parent body, spacecraft or upper stage, will break up into hundreds of…
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 preliminary mission design of spacecraft missions to asteroids often involves, in the early phases, the selection of candidate target asteroids. The final result of such an analysis is a list of asteroids, ranked with respect to the…
In this paper, a practical approach to the trajectory design for asteroid exploration missions with CubeSats is presented. When applied trajectories are sought, operative concerns and uncertainties affecting the spacecraft dynamics must be…
Ambitious satellite constellation projects by commercial entities and the ease of access to space in recent times have led to a dramatic proliferation of low-Earth space traffic. It jeopardizes space safety and long-term sustainability,…
Photometric observations of asteroids show that some of them are in non-principal axis rotation state (free precession), called tumbling. Collisions between asteroids have been proposed as a possible asteroid rotation excitation mechanism.…
We study the internal response of a galaxy to an unbound encounter and present a survey of orbital parameters covering typical encounters in different galactic environments. Overall, we conclude that relatively weak encounters by low-mass…
Our knowledge of the strengths of small bodies in the Solar System is limited by our poor understanding of their internal structures, and this, in turn, clouds our understanding of the formation and evolution of these bodies. Observations…
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is the first full-scale test of the kinetic impactor method for asteroid deflection, in which a spacecraft intentionally impacts an asteroid to change its trajectory. DART represents an…