Related papers: Low-Thrust Trajectory Optimization for Cubesat Lun…

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…

The Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS) is a 3 Unit (3U) CubeSat designed for a 3-month mission to study solar soft X-ray spectral irradiance. The first of the two flight models was deployed from the International Space Station in…

This paper presents a convex programming approach to the optimization of a multistage launch vehicle ascent trajectory, from the liftoff to the payload injection into the target orbit, taking into account multiple nonconvex constraints,…

After many years of flying in space primarily for educational purposes, CubeSats - tiny satellites with form factors corresponding to arrangements of "1U" units, or cubes, each 10 cm on a side - have come into their own as valuable…

We present here the detection of a system of four low-mass planets around the bright (V=5.5) and close-by (6.5 pc) star HD219134. This is the first result of the Rocky Planet Search program with HARPS-N on the TNG in La Palma. The inner…

Current spacecraft need to launch with all of their required fuel for travel. This limits the system performance, payload capacity, and mission flexibility. One compelling alternative is to perform In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) by…

Since the early 2000' years, the CubeSats have been growing and getting more and more "space" in the Space industry. Their short development schedule, low cost equipment and piggyback launches create a new way to access the space, provide…

As part of the Bristol PROVE mission, a nano satellite in low Earth orbit will be required to track a ground based target during a 400 second flyover. This requires agile attitude control that will be achieved using a system of flywheels.…

This paper presents a nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode-based adaptive smooth control methodology for a distributed space telescope demonstration mission. The distributed space telescope has a flexible focal length that corresponds to…

This paper addresses the computation of Delta-V-optimal, safe, relative orbit reconfigurations for satellite formations in a centralized fashion. The formations under consideration comprise an uncontrolled chief spacecraft flying with an…

Future multi-spacecraft missions require robust autonomous trajectory optimization capabilities to ensure safe and efficient rendezvous operations. This capability hinges on solving non-convex optimal control problems in real-time, although…

Chandrayaan-3 mission achieved a historic milestone with its successful soft landing near the lunar south pole, highlighting the critical role of the navigation, guidance, and control (NGC) system. Navigation provided vehicle state…

We present a computational approach for the design of continuous low thrust transfers around an asteroid. These transfers are computed through the use of a reachability set generated on a lower dimensional Poincar\'e surface. Complex, long…

In this paper, the time- and propellant-optimal low-thrust rephasing problems in circular orbit are studied to depict their solution spaces in an atlas. The number of key parameters that settle the rephasing problems is reduced by…

Japanese Venus Climate Orbiter/AKATSUKI was proposed in 2001 with strong support by international Venus science community and approved as an ISAS (The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science) mission soon after the proposal. The…

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…

We present the open source few-body gravity integration toolkit {\tt SpaceHub}. {\tt SpaceHub} offers a variety of algorithmic methods, including the unique algorithms AR-Radau, AR-Sym6, AR-ABITS and AR-chain$^+$ which we show out-perform…

Space systems miniaturization has been increasingly popular for the past decades, with over 1600 CubeSats and 300 sub-CubeSat sized spacecraft estimated to have been launched since 1998. This trend towards decreasing size enables the…

A concept for forced reentry of small orbital debris with characteristic dimension ~ 10 cm from the highly populated sun synchronous orbit by injecting micron scale dust grains to artificially enhance drag is discussed. The drag enhancement…

A bi-level optimal control framework is introduced to solve the low-thrust re-phasing problem on quasi-periodic invariant tori in multi-body environments where deviations away from the torus during maneuver are considered unsafe or…