Abstract Despite the hazards of asteroids, utilization of their resources and useful materials have been raised recently. In some scenarios, capturing and controlling asteroids are essential for asteroid mining. To this end, a reliable detumbling mission using a swarm of CubeSats, each equipped with a low-thrust thruster, is proposed in this paper. The landing location and the orientation of each CubeSat on an ellipsoidal asteroid are determined by designing optimal CubeSat (thruster) configuration according to a minimum number of required CubeSats for maximizing reliability and minimizing fuel consumption with a specific level of redundancy using a Genetic Algorithm. The feasibility of the configuration is examined using the geometric method. Examining the proposed configuration through a simulation shows acceptable performance with the desired reliability and level of redundancy.
Highlights Using a swarm of CubeSats for detumbling an asteroid. Considering reliability in determining landing location, CubeSat orientation, and its number. Proposing optimal configuration of CubeSat. Considering level of redundancy in the mission design. Examining feasibility of configuration utilizing geometry of control allocation.
Designing reliable detumbling mission for asteroid mining
Acta Astronautica ; 174 ; 270-280
2020-05-11
11 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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