The past two decades have witnessed a renewed interest in low frequency radio astronomy, with a particular focus on frequencies above 30 MHz e.g., LOFAR (LOw Frequency ARray) in the Netherlands and its European extension ILT, the International LOFAR Telescope. However, at frequencies below 30 MHz, Earth-based observations are limited due to a combination of severe ionospheric distortions, almost full reflection of radio waves below 10 MHz, solar eruptions and the radio frequency interference (RFI) of human-made Email addresses: m.j.bentum@tue.nl (M.J. Bentum), m.k.verma@student.tudelft.nl (M.K. Verma), r.t.rajan@tudelft.nl (R.T. Rajan), boonstra@astron.nl (A.J. Boonstra), C.J.M.Verhoeven@tudelft.nl (C.J.M. Verhoeven), e.k.a.gill@tudelft.nl (E.K.A. Gill), a.j.vanderveen@tudelft.nl (A.J. van der Veen), h.falcke@astro.ru.nl (H. Falcke), m.kleinwolt@astro.ru.nl (M. Klein Wolt), b.monna@hyperiontechnologies.nl (B. Monna), s.engelen@hyperiontechnologies.nl (S. Engelen), j.rotteveel@isispace.nl (J. Rotteveel), lgurvits@jive.eu (L.I. Gurvits)

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This paper aims to investigate the capabilities of exploiting optical line-of-sight navigation using star trackers. First, a synthetic image simulator is developed to generate realistic images, which is later exploited to test the star tracker’s performance. Then, generic considerations regarding attitude estimation are drawn, highlighting how the camera’s characteristics influence the accuracy of the estimation. The full attitude estimation chain is designed and analyzed in order to maximize the performance in a deep-space cruising scenario. After that, the focus is shifted to the actual planet-centroiding algorithm, with particular emphasis on the illumination compensation routine, which is shown to be fundamental to achieving the required navigation accuracy. The influence of the center of the planet within the singular pixel is investigated, showing how this uncontrollable parameter can lower performance. Finally, the complete algorithm chain is tested with the synthetic image simulator in a wide range of scenarios. The final promising results show that with the selected hardware, even in the higher noise condition, it is possible to achieve a direction’s azimuth and elevation angle error in the order of 1–2 arc sec for Venus, and below 1 arc sec for Jupiter, for a spacecraft placed at 1 AU from the Sun. These values finally allow for a positioning error below 1000 km, which is in line with the current non-autonomous navigation state-of-the-art.

The purpose of this work is to present a novel CubeSat architecture, aimed to explore Near Earth Asteroids. The fast growth in small satellite commercial-off-the-shelf technologies, which characterized the last decade of space industry, is exploited to design a 3U CubeSat able to provide a basic scientific return sufficient to improve the target asteroid dataset. An overview of the current available technologies for each subsystem is presented, followed by a component selection driven by the mission constraints. First a typical asteroid fly-by mission is introduced together with the system and performance requirements. Then each characterizing subsystem is critically analyzed, and the proposed configuration is presented, showing the mission feasibility within only 3.9 kg of wet mass and 385 m/s of total ΔV.