Trajectory options for low-cost missions to asteroids

Sims, Jon; Longuski, James M.; Staugler, Andrew

doi:10.1016/s0094-5765(98)00003-4

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 2 publications

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“…Fewer than 5% of all known asteroids have perihelion radii below 1.6 AU (Ref. 20), so VenusVenus legs with two-year resonances have very few opportunities for asteroid encounters. The aphelion radius is near 2.3 AU for an orbit with a resonance of 3 Venus years.…”

Section: Earlier Launch Datesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trajectory Options to Pluto via Gravity Assists from Venus, Mars, and Jupiter

Sims

Staugler

Longuski

1997

Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets

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Analytic and numeric techniques are used to assess trajectory options for the Pluto Express sciencecraft for a launch early in the next decade. The constraints placed on the Pluto Express trajectory for this study are severe-total ight time to Pluto of 12 years or less using a Delta-class launch vehicle. In addition, no ybys of Earth are permitted. Suitable trajectories are found with launch windows before, near, and after the date of the baseline launch. All of these trajectories take advantage of a gravity assist with Jupiter, and all use two or three gravity assists with Venus before arriving at Jupiter. In two cases, a Mars gravity assist is used in conjunction with three Venus gravity assists. Several asteroid yby opportunities are presented for the baseline mission and for a backup trajectory, which launch in March 2001 and July 2002, respectively. For example, a yby of the asteroid Seraphina (which has a radius of 32 km) can be accommodated in the baseline mission for an additional deterministic delta-velocity of 0.12 km/s, well within the capability of the system. Nomenclature C 3 = V 2 1 , km 2 /s 2 g = standard gravitationalaccelerationon the Earth, km/s 2 I sp = speci c impulse, s m f = total injected dry mass ( nal mass), kg m i = total injected wet mass (initial mass), kg m p = propellant mass, kg m s=c = spacecraft mass (excluding propellant tanks), kg R J = radius of Jupiter r po = radius of circular parking orbit, km V V = velocity of Venus with respect to the sun, km/s V 1 = hyperbolic excess velocity vector, km/s 1V = magnitude of a change in velocity, km/s or m/s 1V NAV = navigation 1V , km/s or m/s 1V PL = deterministic postlaunch 1V , km/s 1V TPL = total postlaunch 1V , km/s ¹ E = gravitational parameter of the Earth, km 3 /s 2

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Section: Earlier Launch Datesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trajectory Options to Pluto via Gravity Assists from Venus, Mars, and Jupiter

Sims

Staugler

Longuski

1997

Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets

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Dry mass optimization for the impulsive transfer trajectory of a near-Earth asteroid sample return mission

Liu

Zheng

2019

Astrophys Space Sci

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Design of 3-D trajectory sequences for multiple asteroid flyby missions

Cataldi

Marcuccio

2022

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Prospecting is a necessary pre-requisite of future asteroid mining ventures. It is generally assumed that inspection for the purpose of identifying the asteroid composition can be effectively accomplished from a distance through remote sensing. To be carried out in a timely and economically viable way, prospecting is best performed by devising trajectories such that a single spacecraft manages to fly by as many asteroid as possible, yet seeking to minimize a cost function that we assume to be coincident with propellant consumption. In this paper, we present a method to identify trajectory sequences to multiple asteroids. We restrict our analysis to Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs), i.e.,, those with perihelion at less than 1.3 AU from the Sun, focusing on Apollo class NEAs only. The volume of space where encounter seeking takes place is a torus-shaped 3-D region in the proximity of the ecliptic. Under the assumption of using impulsive maneuvers to connect ballistic coast arcs, we show that a deterministic building blocks approach is successful in finding a significant number of multi-flyby mission profiles with the desired characteristics. Using this scheme, it is possible to envisage realistic asteroid prospecting missions using a single launch to deploy a number of small spacecraft, with tens—or possibly hundreds—of asteroids visited in a few years.

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Trajectory options for low-cost missions to asteroids

Cited by 4 publications

References 2 publications

Trajectory Options to Pluto via Gravity Assists from Venus, Mars, and Jupiter

Trajectory Options to Pluto via Gravity Assists from Venus, Mars, and Jupiter

Dry mass optimization for the impulsive transfer trajectory of a near-Earth asteroid sample return mission

Design of 3-D trajectory sequences for multiple asteroid flyby missions

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