4 papers · 1 filter
Investigating Asteroid Surface Geophysics with an Ultra-Low-Gravity Centrifuge in Low-Earth Orbit
Stephen R. Schwartz, Jekan Thangavelautham, Erik Asphaug +3
Near-Earth small-body mission targets 162173 Ryugu, 101955 Bennu, and 25143 Itokawa produce gravity fields around 4 orders of magnitude below that of Earth and their irregular shap…
A Spring Propelled Extreme Environment Robot for Off-World Cave Exploration
Steven Morad, Thomas Dailey, Leonard Vance +1
Pits on the Moon and Mars are intriguing geological formations that have yet to be explored. These geological formations can provide protection from harsh diurnal temperature varia…
An Autonomous Passive Navigation Method for Nanosatellite Exploration of the Asteroid Belt
Leonard Vance, Jekan Thangavelautham, Erik Asphaug
There are more than 750,000 asteroids identified in the main belt. These asteroids are diverse in composition and size. Some of these asteroids can be traced back to the early sola…
Laser Communication and Coordination Control of Spacecraft Swarms
Himangshu Kalita, Leonard Vance, Vishnu Reddy +1
Swarms of small spacecraft offer whole new capabilities in Earth observation, global positioning and communications compared to a large monolithic spacecraft. These small spacecraf…