Meteoroids detection with the LUMIO lunar CubeSat

Meteoroids detection with the LUMIO lunar CubeSat

Topputo, F. (Politecnico di Milano)
Merisio, G. (Politecnico di Milano)
Cervone, A. (TU Delft Space Systems Egineering)
Speretta, S. (TU Delft Space Systems Egineering)
Menicucci, A. (TU Delft Space Systems Egineering)
Turan, E. (TU Delft Space Systems Egineering)
Bertels, E. (Innovative Solutions in Space)
Vennekens, Johan (European Space Agency (ESA))
Walker, R (European Space Agency (ESA))

2022

The Lunar Meteoroid Impacts Observer (LUMIO) is a CubeSat mission to observe, quantify, and characterize the meteoroid impacts on the lunar farside by detecting their flashes. This complements the knowledge gathered by Earth-based observations of the lunar nearside, thus synthesizing global information on the lunar meteoroid environment and contributing to the lunar situational awareness. The goal of LUMIO is to advance our current knowledge of meteoroid models in the solar system. In this work, we present the methodology devised to predict the scientific contribution of LUMIO. Our approach relies on combined modeling and simulation of payload, orbit, and environment. The analyses carried out have been used to drive the design of the LUMIO mission and its payload, the LUMIO-Cam. A payload radiometric model is derived and exploited to assess the quality of the scientific measurements. A dedicated study about straylight rejection is carried out to assess how straylight noise affects LUMIO-Cam measurements. Our results indicate that a 150 mm baffle grants good performance when the Sun angle is between 20° and 90°. Furthermore, the present-day LUMIO mission has the potential to detect more than 6000 impact flashes during the activity peak of the Geminids in 2024 in the range of the equivalent impact kinetic energy at Earth of [10 ⁻⁶,10 ⁻¹]kton TNT Equivalent. Compared to previous programmes, LUMIO could refine information and fill the knowledge gap about the meteoroid population in the ranges of the equivalent impact kinetic energy at Earth of [10 ⁻⁶,10 ⁻⁴]kton TNT Equivalent and [10 ⁻⁴,10 ⁻¹]kton TNT Equivalent, respectively.

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:df0a0b9d-a0fe-4a6d-b027-7665618752c1

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2022.115213

2023-07-01

0019-1035

Icarus, 389

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

journal article

© 2022 F. Topputo, G. Merisio, A. Cervone, S. Speretta, A. Menicucci, E. Turan, E. Bertels, Johan Vennekens, R Walker, More Authors