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With the advent of the nanosat/cubesat revolution, new opportunities have appeared to develop and launch small ($\sim$\ts 1000 cm$^3$), low-cost ($\sim$\ts US\$ 1M) experiments in space in very short timeframes ($\sim$ 2\ts years). In the…
Space debris larger than 1 cm can damage space instruments and impact Earth. The low-Earth orbits (at heights smaller than 2000 km) and orbits near the geostationary- Earth orbit (at 35786 km height) are especially endangered, because most…
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…
Orbital debris is a constraint on the long-term health of any spacecraft and must be considered during mission planning. Varying mechanisms have been proposed to quantify the problem. Assessment of orbital debris employing ground-based…
The laser-tracked geodetic satellites LAGEOS, LAGEOS II and LARES are currently employed, among other things, to measure the general relativistic Lense-Thirring effect in the gravitomagnetic field of the spinning Earth with the hope of…
The development of large constellations of satellites (i.e., so-called megaconstellations or satcons) is poised to increase the number of LEO satellites by more than an order of magnitude in the coming decades. Such a rapid growth of…
Since the late 1950s, when the first artificial satellite was launched, the number of Resident Space Objects has steadily increased. It is estimated that around one million objects larger than one cm are currently orbiting the Earth, with…
In this paper we investigate the opportunities offered by the new Earth gravity models from the dedicated CHAMP and, especially, GRACE missions to the project of measuring the general relativistic Lense-Thirring effect with a new Earth's…
The number of objects in orbit is rapidly increasing, primarily driven by the launch of megaconstellations, an approach to satellite constellation design that involves large numbers of satellites paired with their rapid launch and disposal.…
The space environment around the Earth is populated by more than 130 million objects of 1 mm in size and larger, and future predictions shows that this amount is destined to increase, even if mitigation measures are implemented at a far…
Orbital debris is a constraint on the long-term health of any spacecraft and must be consi-dered during mission planning. Varying mechanisms have been proposed to quantify the problem. Accurate in-situ data is essential with various types…
The proliferation of space debris in LEO has become a major concern for the space industry. With the growing interest in space exploration, the prediction of potential collisions between objects in orbit has become a crucial issue. It is…
Recent observations of asteroidal surfaces indicate the presence of materials that do not match the bulk lithology of the body. A possible explanation for the presence of these exogenous materials is that they are products of inter-asteroid…
Space launches produce ionospheric disturbances which can be observed through measurements such as Global Navigation Satellite System signal delays. Here we report observations and numerical simulations of the ionospheric depletion due to a…
Accurate modeling of astrophysical jets is critical for understanding accretion systems and their impact on the interstellar medium. While astronomical observations can validate models, they have limitations. Controlled laboratory…
The amount of debris in orbit has increased significantly over the years. With the recent growth of interest in space exploration, conjunction assessment has become a central issue. One important metric to evaluate conjunction risk is the…
Aerodynamic collision avoidance manoeuvres provide an opportunity for satellites in Low Earth Orbits to reduce the risk during close encounters. With rising numbers of satellites and objects in orbit, satellites experience close encounters…
The collinear Lagrange points of the Sun-Earth system provide an ideal environment for highly sensitive space science missions. Consequently many new missions are planed by ESA and NASA that require satellites close to these points. For…
The GLAST Large Area Telescope (LAT) is the next generation satellite experiment for high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. It is a pair conversion telescope built with a plastic anticoincidence shield, a segmented CsI electromagnetic…
We present a dynamic physico-economic model of Earth orbit use with endogenous satellite collision risk to study conditions under which debris-producing collisions between orbiting bodies result in debris growth that may render Earth's…