Recent developments in miniaturization of spacecraft systems and science instruments have led to great interest in their application to deep space missions. A recent JPL study, for example, considered the design of a small spacecraft which could yield useful science data from fast flybys of the near-earth asteroids. Called AIM (Asteroid Investigation with Microspacecraft), three spacecrafts would be launched with Pegasus into low earth orbit (LEO), separated, and then remain there up to 2 weeks, each waiting for the opportune time to inject to a flyby with a preselected asteroid. Each spacecraft has its own kick stage for this injection maneuver. This paper briefly describes the spacecraft design and capability, the asteroid flyby opportunities available within the coming decade, and other possible mission scenarios which could take advantage of a single launch multi-spacecraft option.


    Access

    Access via TIB

    Check availability in my library


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    A multi-mission flyby strategy for the near-earth asteroids


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    1992 AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Conference ; 1992 ; Hilton Head Island, SC, United States


    Publication date :

    1992-01-01


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English






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

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


    Mission Accessibility of Near-Earth Asteroids

    B. W. Barbee / P. A. Abell / V. P. Friedensen et al. | NTIS | 2015


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

    Machuca, Pablo / Sànchez Cuartielles, Joan Pau / Masdemont Soler, Josep et al. | BASE | 2018

    Free access