Related papers: The Feasibility of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids…
Low-thrust trajectories play a crucial role in optimizing scientific output and cost efficiency in asteroid belt missions. Unlike high-thrust transfers, low-thrust trajectories require solving complex optimal control problems. This…
The nature and physical properties of asteroids, in particular those orbiting in the near-Earth space, are of scientific interest and practical importance. Exoplanet surveys can be excellent resources to detect asteroids, both already known…
This paper presents the development and evaluation of an optimization-based autonomous trajectory planning algorithm for the asteroid reconnaissance phase of a deep-space exploration mission. The reconnaissance phase is a low-altitude flyby…
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…
Current practice for asteroid close proximity maneuvers requires extremely accurate characterization of the environmental dynamics and precise spacecraft positioning prior to the maneuver. This creates a delay of several months between the…
The field of autonomous navigation for unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) is in continuous growth and increasing levels of autonomy have been reached in the last few years. However, the task becomes more challenging when the focus is on the…
In this work, we propose a method to efficiently compute smooth, time-optimal trajectories for micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) evading a moving obstacle. Our approach first computes an n-dimensional trajectory from the start- to an arbitrary…
This paper presents an analysis of optimal impact strategies to deflect potentially dangerous asteroids. To compute the increase in the minimum orbit intersection distance of the asteroid due to an impact with a spacecraft, simple…
The focus of this work is the current distribution of asteroids in co-orbital motion with Venus, Earth and Jupiter, under a quasi-coplanar configuration and for a medium-term timescale of the order of 900 years. A co-orbital trajectory is a…
We consider the gravity assist maneuver, that is, a correction of spacecraft motion at its passing near a planet, as a tool for evaluating the Eddington post-Newtonian parameters $\beta$ and $\gamma$, characterizing vacuum spherically…
The Gravity Assisted Maneuver has been applied in lots of space missions, to change the spacecraft heliocentric velocity vector and the geometry of the orbit, after the close approach to a celestial body, saving propellant consumption. It…
We present the solution approach developed by the team `TheAntipodes' during the 12th edition of the Global Trajectory Optimization Competition (GTOC 12). An overview of the approach is as follows: (1) generate asteroid subsets, (2) chain…
Despite numerous successful missions to small celestial bodies, the gravity field of such targets has been poorly characterized so far. Gravity estimates can be used to infer the internal structure and composition of small bodies and, as…
We aim at providing a preliminary approach on the dynamics of a spacecraft in orbit about the asteroid (99942) Apophis during its Earth close approach. The physical properties from the polyhedral shape of the target are derived assigning…
The Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) proposes to retrieve a near-Earth asteroid and position it in a lunar distant retrograde orbit (DRO) for later study, crewed exploration, and ultimately resource exploitation. During the Caltech Space…
We introduce NEOviz, an interactive visualization system designed to assist planetary defense experts in the visual analysis of the movements of near-Earth objects in the Solar System that might prove hazardous to Earth. Asteroids are often…
One of the fundamental problems in spacecraft trajectory design is finding the optimal transfer trajectory that minimizes the propellant consumption and transfer time simultaneously. We formulate this as a multi-objective optimal control…
Small body exploration is a pertinent challenge due to low gravity environments and strong sensitivity to perturbations like Solar Radiation Pressure (SRP). Thus, autonomous methods are being developed to enable safe navigation and control…
We present an optimization-based approach for fuel-efficient spacecraft rendezvous to the Gateway, a space station that will be deployed on a near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the Moon. The approach: i) ensures passive safety and…
The reachable set of controlled dynamical systems consist of the set of all possible reachable states from an initial condition, over a certain period of time under various control and operation constraints and exogenous disturbances. For…