In response to the current interest in CubeSats and potential applications for planetary exploration, this work studies the feasibility of using autonomous CubeSats to flyby near-Earth asteroids. Considering the limited performance of current propulsion systems for CubeSats, low-energy (impulsive and low-thrust) trajectories are designed to encounter near-Earth asteroids in the medium-fidelity Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem, and their existence in a high-fidelity ephemeris model is also verified. The use of large ground antennas for deep-space communications might represent a major portion of CubeSat mission budgets, and thus the feasibility of performing optical navigation to autonomously estimate and correct the trajectory of the CubeSat is also evaluated through Monte Carlo simulations. Preliminary results show that approximately 4 asteroids per year could be reached by a 3U CubeSat if deployed around the first or second Sun-Earth Lagrange points. According to the limited performance of current CubeSat components, flyby altitudes of the order of 100–500 kilometers are determined possible using only observations of the Sun and of the target asteroid for autonomous navigation. Keywords: Interplanetary CubeSats; near-Earth asteroids; trajectory design; autonomous navigation ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (author's final draft)


    Access

    Download


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Low-energy trajectory design and autonomous navigation to flyby near-Earth asteroids using CubeSats



    Publication date :

    2018-01-01


    Type of media :

    Miscellaneous


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



    Classification :

    DDC:    629




    AUTONOMOUS NAVIGATION AND GUIDANCE FOR CUBESATS TO FLYBY NEAR- EARTH ASTEROIDS

    Machuca, Pablo / Cuartielles, Joan Pau Sanchez | TIBKAT | 2020


    DESTINY LOW THRUST TRAJECTORY DESIGN FROM EARTH ORBIT TO ASTEROIDS FLYBY

    Yamamoto, Takayuki / Ozaki, Naoya / Celik, Onur et al. | TIBKAT | 2020