Cold Atom Interferometry for enhancing the Radio Science gravity experiment: A Phobos case study

Interplanetary missions have relied on Radio Science (RS) for recovering gravity fields via detecting their signature on the spacecraft’s trajectory. Yet the weak gravitational fields of small bodies, coupled with the prominent influence of confounding accelerations, hinder the efficacy of this method. Meanwhile, quantum sensors based on Cold...

A Coupled 2D Translational-Rotational-Tidal model on Solar system bodies using a Maxwell viscoelastic rheology

Planetary observational accuracy increases and the dynamical modeling of tidal behaviour has to follow. In this thesis, a newly developed method (Correia et al. 2014; Boue et al. 2016) to deal with tidal interactions in a 2D two body problem is validated and for the first time applied to Solar system dynamics on a short time-scale. This method...

Geodetic parameter estimation for small-satellite small-body missions: An uncertainty-driven approach

This thesis work has been motivated by the growing interest in small-spacecraft small-body missions and more specifically inspired by a proposed mission to the largest Martian Trojan (5261) Eureka. This binary asteroid represents a promising target for a planetary mission, as a better understanding of its formation and evolution would provide...

Long Term Evolution of Neptune's Atmosphere

We present an analysis of the temporal evolution of hazes on Neptune between 1994 and 2018, using HST archival data at visible wavelengths from theWFPC2 and WFC3 cameras. We assess the changes over time of the global reflectivity in the F850LP/F845M (methane) and F467M (blue) filters, adding more than 10 years of data to previous analyses. We...

Optimizing the observation schedule of the JANUS instrument to improve the Jovian system ephemerides

The Jupiter Icy moons Explorer (JUICE) will generate ephemerides of the Galilean moons to assess their ability to sustain live. However, determining the ephemerides only using radiometric tracking (acquired using PRIDE and 3GM) results in an unstable solution which is related to the absence of flybys of especially Io, such that its dynamics can...

Transfer of Polarized Light in an (Exo)planetary Atmosphere-Ocean System

Fresnel reflection of starlight in the oceans of exoplanets results in two main phenomena: (1) a glint in the exoplanetary ocean, whose size increases with wind speed, and (2) a maximum degree of polarization at the Brewster angle. The corresponding features in the planetary phase curve, i.e. the flux and degree of polarization of the reflected...

ESS: A Settlement Site Selection Tool for a Human Mars Base

In recent years, private entities have joined the race to send humans to the Red Planet. While Mars is well defined as the next frontier for human space flight, little work has been done towards identifying possible settlement sites on its surface. The current site proposals use a bottom-up approach, that is focusing on one settlement site and...

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...

Modelling the Last Glacial Ice Sheet on Antarctica with Laterally Varying Relaxation Time

Glacial isostatic adjustment is the viscoelastic response of the earth to ice sheet loading. Ice dynamic models employ glacial isostatic adjustment to accurately simulate bedrock uplift. In previous studies, ice dynamic models use only a constant relaxation time to predict bedrock uplift. In this study, the aim is to improve an ice dynamic model...

A Miniaturised Raman Spectrometer for Life Detection in Ice

The objective of this MSc thesis was to design a miniaturised Raman spectrometer that can be used in terrestrial deep ice applications of the IceMole probe. This probe is a manoeuvrable subsurface system for clean in situ analysis and sampling, developed at FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences since 2008, that is now part of a bigger DLR...