Related papers: Low-Thrust Trajectory Optimization for Cubesat Lun…
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…
Any missions to catch 1I/'Oumuamua have the daunting challenge of generating higher hyperbolic excess speeds than the interstellar object's own, i.e. $>$ 26.3 $kms^{-1}$ with respect to the Sun. To accomplish this task using chemical…
This paper presents a mission concept that enables Earth-Mars communications resistant to periods of solar conjunction by using CubeSat satellites equipped with a solar sail. The dynamics of the satellite is modeled separately in the…
Machine learning techniques have demonstrated their effectiveness in achieving autonomy and optimality for nonlinear and high-dimensional dynamical systems. However, traditional black-box machine learning methods often lack formal stability…
DESTINY+ is an upcoming JAXA Epsilon medium-class mission to fly by the Geminids meteor shower parent body (3200) Phaethon. It will be the world's first spacecraft to escape from a near-geostationary transfer orbit into deep space using a…
Cubesats and similarly scaled nano-satellites present significant opportunities for hosting both scientific and commercial payloads for Earth sensing and astronomical observations, in particular in the area of rapid-response observations to…
This paper studies energy-efficient unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-enabled wireless communications, where the UAV acts as a flying base station (BS) to serve the ground users (GUs) within some predetermined latency constraints, e.g.,…
Laser-accelerated lightsails enable new types of missions that are very different from the Breakthrough Starshot mission to the Centauri system that aims to send 1 gram of payload at 0.2 c. The present work widens the mission design space…
This work aims to automate the design of Multiple Gravity-Assist (MGA) transfers between planets using low-thrust propulsion. In particular, during the preliminary design phase of space missions, the combinatorial complexity of MGA…
The ability to launch small secondary payloads to Mars on future science missions present an exciting opportunity for demonstration of advanced technologies for planetary exploration such as aerocapture. Over the years, several aerocapture…
A vast wealth of literature exists on the topic of rocket trajectory optimisation, particularly in the area of interplanetary trajectories due to its relevance today. Studies on optimising interstellar and intergalactic trajectories are…
The space sector is experiencing a flourishing growth and evidence is mounting that the near future will be characterized by a large amount of deep-space missions. In the last decade, CubeSats have granted affordable access to space due to…
Dynamical structures in the circular restricted three-body problem (CR3BP) are fundamental for designing low-energy transfers, as they aid in analyzing phase space transport and designing desirable trajectories. One of these dynamical…
For low-energy missions to the Moon and beyond, Ballistic Capture has proven to be a valuable technique for enabling orbital insertion while alleviating propulsion system requirements. This approach offers two key advantages. First, it…
The problem of minimizing the transfer time between periodic orbits in the Earth-Moon elliptic restricted three-body problem using a multi-mode propulsion system is considered. By employing the true anomaly on the primary orbit as the…
There is a growing number of Earth's co-orbital bodies being discovered. At least five of them are known to be temporarily in quasi-satellite orbits. One of those, 469219 Kamo'oalewa, was identified as possibly having the same composition…
The current lunar exploration, particularly the regular large-scale cargo transportation in the Earth-Moon system proposes requirements for amount of low-energy lunar transfers. The conventional grid-search method to construct low-energy…
This paper presents a strategy for optimal manoeuvre design of multi-satellite formation flying in low Earth orbit environment, with the aim of providing a tool for mission operation design. The proposed methodology for formation flying…
CUBES is a X-ray detector payload which will be installed on the KTH 3U CubeSat mission, MIST. The detector comprises cerium-doped Gd3Al2Ga3O12 (GAGG) scintillators read out with silicon photomultipliers through a Citiroc…
Advanced solar sailing has been an increasingly attractive propulsion system for highly non-Keplerian orbits. Three new applications of the orbital angular momentum reversal (H-reversal) trajectories using solar sails are presented in this…