Related papers: Spacecraft at Small NEO
The threat posed by MMOD to spacecraft has escalated with the growing density of orbital objects, driven by the proliferation of satellite constellations such as Starlink and OneWeb. This paper reviews the current challenges and…
Interstellar objects (ISOs) are small bodies that can travel through our solar system from other star systems. When present in our solar system, they represent an opportunity to study the properties and origins of these objects, as well as…
We characterize mission profiles for human expeditions to near-Earth asteroids, Venus, and Mars. Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are the closest destinations beyond cis-lunar space and present a compelling target with capabilities already under…
Asteroid mining offers the possibility to revolutionize supply of resources vital for human civilization. Preliminary analysis suggests that Near-Earth Asteroids (NEA) contain enough volatile and high value minerals to make the mining…
Among the near-Earth object (NEO) population there are comets and active asteroids which are sources of fragments that initially move together; in addition, some NEOs follow orbits temporarily trapped in a web of secular resonances. These…
We present a detailed observational strategy for finding Near Earth Objects (NEOs) with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) telescope. We investigate strategies in normal, unbinned mode as well as binning the CCDs 2x2 or 3x3, which affects…
Laser ablation of a Near-Earth Object (NEO) on a collision course with Earth produces a cloud of ejecta which exerts a thrust on the NEO, deflecting it from its original trajectory. Ablation may be performed from afar by illuminating an…
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…
Context. The discovery and tracking of 2018 LA marks only the third instance in history that the parent body of a fireball has been identified before its eventual disintegration in our atmosphere. The subsequent recovery of meteorites from…
The operation of satellites in very low Earth orbit (VLEO) has been linked to a variety of benefits to both the spacecraft platform and mission design. Critically, for Earth observation (EO) missions a reduction in altitude can enable…
The near-Earth cosmic ray flux has been monitored for more than 70 years by a network of ground-based neutron monitors (NMs). With the ever-increasing importance of quantifying the radiation risk and effects of cosmic rays for, e.g., air…
The rotational properties of small near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) provide crucial insights into their internal structure and collisional history. However, systematic surveys targeting metre- to decametre-sized bodies are rare, thus leaving…
As miniaturized spacecraft (e.g., cubesats and smallsats) and instrumentation become an increasingly indispensable part of space exploration and scientific investigations, it is important to understand their potential susceptibility to…
We investigate various short-warning mitigation scenarios via fragmentation for a hypothetical impact of asteroid 2023 NT1, a Near-Earth Object (NEO) that was discovered on July 15, 2023, two days after its closest approach to Earth on July…
The recent explosive growth of small satellite operations driven primarily from an academic or pedagogical need, has demonstrated the viability of commercial-off-the-shelf technologies in space. They have also leveraged and shown the need…
With the NEOWISE portion of the \emph{Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer} (WISE) project, we have carried out a highly uniform survey of the near-Earth object (NEO) population at thermal infrared wavelengths ranging from 3 to 22 $\mu$m,…
Near-Earth objects (NEOs) moving in resonant, Earth-like orbits are potentially important. On the positive side, they are the ideal targets for robotic and human low-cost sample return missions and a much cheaper alternative to using the…
The computation of the Minimum Orbital Intersection Distance (MOID) is an old, but increasingly relevant problem. Fast and precise methods for MOID computation are needed to select potentially hazardous asteroids from a large catalogue. The…
Over 4.5 years, the Mission Accessible Near-Earth Object Survey (MANOS) assembled 228 Near-Earth Object (NEO) lightcurves. We report rotational lightcurves for 82 NEOs, constraints on amplitudes and periods for 21 NEOs, lightcurves with no…
Thermal infrared measurements of near-Earth objects provide critical data for constraining their physical properties such as size. The NEOWISE mission has been conducting an all-sky infrared survey to gather such data and improve our…