A Model-Based Systems Engineering approach to the conceptual design of an adaptable Small Solar System Body Lander

Standardization is becoming more commonplace in space missions, aiming to increase reliability and drive down costs. Due to the relative similarities in operating environment between Small Solar System Bodies (SSSBs), a highly-adaptable lander may be able to service a majority of SSSBs with minor adaptations. The model-based systems engineering ...

Asteroid Muography: Design feasibility of a hodoscopic, spacecraft-based, detector intended for muon tomography of asteroid interiors.

Asteroids, or more formally, Small Solar System Bodies, offer a wealth of scientific knowledge and, increasingly, economic potential. Regrettably, because of their small size and the fact that the largest groups of asteroids in the solar system are situated tens of millions of kilometers from Earth, ground based observations yield limited data,...

Physical characterization and classification of asteroid (16) Psyche through reflectance spectro-polarimetry

Knowledge of the bodies in our Solar System lies at the foundation of answering profound questions on its formation. The key to understanding how life has been able to form on Earth might be hidden in the desolate space where comets and asteroids orbit the Sun. Exploration missions to these small celestial bodies have received an increasing...

Stable Orbits in the Small-Body Problem: An Application to the Psyche Mission

Over the past few years, space missions to minor celestial bodies have gained increased attention from the space community. A prime example is the selection of Psyche as NASA’s fourteenth Discovery Program mission. Orbital dynamics in the vicinity of small irregular bodies pose great challenges for trajectory design. In particular, science...

ARM: Asteroid Reflection Model: The implementation of an asteroid polarimetry model and its application to interpret asteroid (3200) Phaethon observations

Asteroid Reflection Model (ARM) is a newly developed model that simulates reflected radiation and polarization on an asteroid's surface. The working principle behind the model is radiative transfer using Fourier series expansions of reflection matrices. Input models and parameters are: a triangle polyhedron shape model of an asteroid, a surface...

Cubesat Deployment Trajectories for the Asteroid Impact Mission

Missions to Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are a growing trend in spaceflight. The interest for such bodies is not only justified by the threat that they represent for the Earth, but also because they are potential sources of extra-terrestrial materials, provide windows to the past of the Solar System and to planetary formation, and offer a good...