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Measurements in the atmosphere and at the surface of Venus are required to understand fundamental processes of how terrestrial planets evolve and how they work today. While the European Venus community is unified in its support of the…
The lunar surface has been exposed to the space environment for billions of years and during this time has accumulated records of a wide range of astrophysical phenomena. These include solar wind particles and the cosmogenic products of…
A problem of constructing the trajectory of a spacecraft flight to Venus within the framework of a mission including landing of a lander in a given region of the planet's surface is being considered. A new celestial mechanics related method…
Antarctica provides a unique environment for astronomy. The cold, dry and stable air found above the high plateau, as well as the pure ice below, offers new opportunities across the photon & particle spectrum. The summits of the plateau…
A problem of determining attainable landing sites on the surface of Venus is an essential part of the Venera-D project aimed to explore the planet using a lander. This problem appears due to the inability for the descent module to land at…
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…
Forecasting optical turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere has been an ambitious challenge for the astronomical scientific community for several decades. While earlier research primarily focused on whether it was possible to predict optical…
Issues for transport facilities on the lunar surface related to science, engineering, architecture, and human-factors are discussed. Logistic decisions made in the next decade may be crucial to financial success. In addition to outlining…
Lunar laser ranging (LLR) is used to conduct high-precision measurements of ranges between an observatory on Earth and a laser retro-reflector on the lunar surface. Over the years, LLR has benefited from a number of improvements both in…
The gravitational field of the sun will focus light from a distant source to a focal point at a minimal distance of 550 Astronomical Units from the sun. A proposed mission to this gravitational focus could use the sun as a very large lens,…
There is a growing interest in Lunar exploration fed by the perception that the Moon can be made accessible to low-cost missions in the next decade. The on-going projects to set a communications relay in Lunar orbit and a deep space…
The next decade of survey astronomy has the potential to transform our knowledge of variable stars. Stellar variability underpins our knowledge of the cosmological distance ladder, and provides direct tests of stellar formation and…
Very low Earth orbits (VLEO), typically classified as orbits below approximately 450 km in altitude, have the potential to provide significant benefits to spacecraft over those that operate in higher altitude orbits. This paper provides a…
NASA's return to the Moon presents unparalleled opportunities to advance high-impact scientific capabilities. At the cutting edge of these possibilities are extremely high-resolution interferometric observations at visible and ultraviolet…
To-date, all human economic activity has depended on the resources of a single planet, and it has long been recognized that developments in space exploration could in principle open our closed planetary economy to external resources of…
The Outer Space Treaty makes it clear that the Moon is the province of all mankind, with the latter ordinarily understood to exclude state or private appropriation of any portion of its surface. However, there are indeterminacies in the…
The Heliophysics Decadal survey should embrace the coming opportunity of sustained lunar surface exploration and facilitate cross-disciplinary efforts to unlock the secrets of the Sun that are held by the lunar surface. With planned Artemis…
Current space exploration programs call for the establishment of a permanent Human presence on the Moon. This paper considers periodic orbits of a shuttle between the Earth and the Moon. Such a shuttle will be needed to bring supplies to…
Astrophysics facilities have been of tremendous importance for planetary science. The flagship space observatory Hubble Space Telescope has produced ground-breaking Solar System science, but when launched it did not even have the capability…
Space weathering is an important surface process occurring on the Moon and other airless bodies, especially those that have no magnetic field. The optical effects of the Moon's space weathering have been largely investigated in the…