Orbital evolution of levitated regolith particles in the 65803 Didymos binary system

Operating spacecraft in a perturbed environment of a binary asteroid system is a challenging task. In light of the near-future exploration of the 65803 Didymos system by the Hera probe and the lack of study of orbital evolution of naturally-levitated regolith particles in this system, a method is here proposed to identify regions of high risk of...

Uncontrolled Motion for Asteroid Missions: An Application to the Binary Asteroid 1999 KW4

This thesis focused on the relevance and feasibility of an uncontrolled cubesat mission in a binary asteroid environment, highlighting the example of the representative Near-Earth Asteroid 1999 KW4, modelled using the TU Delft Astrodynamics Tool (TUDAT). A clear distinction was made between orbits of the cubesat starting in the interior and the...

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...

Solar Sail Periodic Orbits using Taylor Series Integration: Computation and applications of solar sail periodic orbit families in the Earth-Moon and binary asteroid systems

Solar sailing is an innovative space propulsion system based solely on the exchange of momentum between a reflective surface and the photons radiated as light from the Sun. It is completely propellant-free, so the maximum propulsion time is only limited by the lifetime of the sail. But not only does solar sailing provide unlimited propulsion, it...

Orbital dynamics in the vicinity of contact binary asteroid systems

Modeling and analysis of periodic orbits around a contact binary asteroid

The existence and characteristics of periodic orbits (POs) in the vicinity of a contact binary asteroid are investigated with an averaged spherical harmonics model. A contact binary asteroid consists of two components connected to each other, resulting in a highly bifurcated shape. Here, it is represented by a combination of an ellipsoid and a...