Design Challenges and Opportunities Offered by the LUMIO Spacecraft

Design Challenges and Opportunities Offered by the LUMIO Spacecraft: a CubeSat for Observing and Characterizing Micro-Meteoroid Impacts on the Lunar Far Side

Cervone, A. (TU Delft Space Systems Egineering)
Topputo, Francesco (Politecnico di Milano)
Speretta, S. (TU Delft Space Systems Egineering)
Menicucci, A. (TU Delft Space Systems Egineering)
Di Lizia, P. (Politecnico di Milano)
Bertels, E. (Innovative Solutions in Space)
Massari, M. (Politecnico di Milano)
Franzese, V (Politecnico di Milano)
Giordano, C (Politecnico di Milano)

2021

The Earth-Moon system is constantly bombarded by meteoroids of different size and impact speed. Observation of the impacts on the Moon can enable thorough characterization of the Lunar meteoroid flux, which is similar to that of the Earth. While Earth-based Lunar observations are restricted by weather, geometric and illumination conditions, a Lunar-based observation campaign can improve the detection rate and, when observing the Lunar far side, complement in both space and time the observations taken from Earth. The Lunar Meteoroid Impact Observer (LUMIO), one of the two winning concepts of the ESA SysNova Lunar CubeSats for Exploration challenge, is a mission designed to observe, quantify, and characterize the micro-meteoroid impacts on the Lunar far side. It is based on a 12U CubeSat that carries the LUMIO-Cam, a custom-designed optical instrument capable of detecting light flashes in the visible spectrum. The spacecraft is placed on a halo orbit about the Earth–Moon L2 point, where permanent full-disk observation of the Lunar far side can be performed with excellent quality, given the absence of Earth background noise. After passing Phase 0 and an independent feasibility study in the ESA Concurrent Design Facility, the mission has successfully completed its Phase A in March 2021. Although the Phase 0 design of the LUMIO spacecraft was assessed as feasible by the ESA CDF study, a number of critical issues were identified, which have been tackled by the Phase A design. The paper presents the outcome of this Phase A design effort for the LUMIO spacecraft. Particularly relevant changes or updates in the spacecraft design include: a consolidated design of the LUMIO-Cam, with longer baffle for straylight protection; a set of ADCS sensors and actuators with increased redundancy; a combination of Direct-to-Earth communication and inter-satellite link with a mothership in Lunar orbit; use of Earth ranging to complement and validate the current innovative autonomous navigation strategy based on optical observations of the Moon by means of the LUMIO-Cam; re-assessment of the COTS components selection for the power and propulsion systems.

LUMIO
Interplanetary CubeSat missions
Meteoroid impacts
Lunar Situational Awareness
ESA
SysNova challenge

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:6f451636-afe1-43bf-815f-730e5d2b97dc

2022-05-01

72nd International Astronautical Conference, 2021-10-25 → 2021-10-29, Online event, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

conference paper

© 2021 A. Cervone, Francesco Topputo, S. Speretta, A. Menicucci, P. Di Lizia, E. Bertels, M. Massari, V Franzese, C Giordano, More Authors