Related papers: Planetary Exploration 3.0: A Roadmap for Software-…
Autonomous exploration requires robots to generate informative trajectories iteratively. Although sampling-based methods are highly efficient in unmanned aerial vehicle exploration, many of these methods do not effectively utilize the…
In vegetated environments, such as forests, exploratory robots play a vital role in navigating complex, cluttered environments where human access is limited and traditional equipment struggles. Visual occlusion from obstacles, such as…
Safely exploring environments with a-priori unknown constraints is a fundamental challenge that restricts the autonomy of robots. While safety is paramount, guarantees on sufficient exploration are also crucial for ensuring autonomous task…
The high-precision photometry from NASA's Kepler and TESS missions has revolutionized exoplanet detection, enabling the discovery of over 5500 confirmed exoplanets via the transit method and around 10000 additional candidates awaiting…
Highly accurate real-time localization is of fundamental importance for the safety and efficiency of planetary rovers exploring the surface of Mars. Mars rover operations rely on vision-based systems to avoid hazards as well as plan safe…
Pits on the Moon and Mars are intriguing geological formations that have yet to be explored. These geological formations can provide protection from harsh diurnal temperature variations, ionizing radiation, and meteorite impacts. Some have…
We examine the images of hundreds of planetary nebulae (PNe) and find that for about one in six PNe the morphology is too `messy' to be accounted for by models of stellar binary interaction. We speculate that interacting triple stellar…
The search for life on planets outside our solar system has largely been the province of the astrophysics community until recently. A major development since the NASA Astrobiology Strategy 2015 document (AS15) has been the integration of…
Exploration of Mars has been made possible using a series of landers, rovers and orbiters. The HiRise camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has captured high-resolution images covering large tracts of the surface. However, orbital…
Planetary exploration robots must navigate uneven terrain while building reliable maps for space missions. However, most existing methods incorporate traversability constraints but may not handle high uncertainty in elevation estimates near…
Although autonomy has gained widespread usage in structured and controlled environments, robotic autonomy in unknown and off-road terrain remains a difficult problem. Extreme, off-road, and unstructured environments such as undeveloped…
We show that a space-based gravitational microlensing survey for terrestrial extra-solar planets is feasible in the near future, and could provide a nearly complete picture of the properties of planetary systems in our Galaxy. We present…
Mars is the next frontier after Moon for space explorers to demonstrate the extent of human expedition and technology beyond low-earth orbit. Government space agencies as well as private space sectors are extensively endeavouring for a…
In this paper, we propose SEA, a novel approach for active robot exploration through semantic map prediction and a reinforcement learning-based hierarchical exploration policy. Unlike existing learning-based methods that rely on one-step…
The European Moon Rover System (EMRS) Pre-Phase A activity is part of the European Exploration Envelope Programme (E3P) that seeks to develop a versatile surface mobility solution for future lunar missions. These missions include: the Polar…
The NASA Planetary Data System (PDS) hosts millions of images of planets, moons, and other bodies collected throughout many missions. The ever-expanding nature of data and user engagement demands an interpretable content classification…
High-precision astrometry at the sub-microarcsecond level opens up a window to study Earth-like planets in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars, and to determine their masses. It thus promises to play an important role in exoplanet science…
Abridged: The interest towards searches for extraterrestrial civilizations (ETCs) was boosted by the discovery of thousands of exoplanets. We turn to the classification of ETCs for new considerations that may help to design better…
Recent improvements in data collection volume from planetary and space physics missions have allowed the application of novel data science techniques. The Cassini mission for example collected over 600 gigabytes of scientific data from 2004…
Study of exoplanets is one of the main goals of present research in planetary sciences and astrobiology. Analysis of huge planetary data from space missions such as CoRoT and Kepler is directed ultimately at finding a planet similar to…