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13 records found

Autonomous Navigation for Satellite Formations

Advancing Missions Beyond Earth with Inter-satellite Radio Tracking

Over recent years, there has been a growing interest in deep space missions involving small satellites. These missions have not only demonstrated their potential through remarkable achievements but have also spotlighted the critical role they will play in future space exploration ...
This manuscript aims to present and evaluate the applicability of combining optical line-of-sight (LoS) navigation with crosslink radiometric navigation for deep-space cruising distributed space systems. To do so, a set of four distributed space systems architectures is presented ...
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in lunar missions, particularly with the growing role of small satellites facilitated by piggyback launch opportunities. Typically, ground-based radiometric tracking is the workhorse to establish the necessary navigation solution ...

LUMIO

A CubeSat for observing and characterizing micro-meteoroid impacts on the Lunar far side

The Earth-Moon system is constantly bombarded by meteoroids of different size and impact speed. Observation of the impacts on the Moon can enable thorough characterization of the Lunar meteoroid flux, which is similar to that of the Earth. While Earth-based Lunar observations are ...
The Lunar Meteoroid Impact Observer (LUMIO) is a CubeSat mission at the Earth-Moon Lagrangian point 2 (L2) designed to observe, quantify, and characterize the meteoroid impacts by detecting their flashes on the Lunar farside. LUMIO can be deployed as one of the payloads in the NA ...
Recent advances in space technology provide an opportunity for small satellites to be launched in cislunar space. However, tracking these small satellites still depends on ground-based operations. Autonomous navigation could be a possible solution considering the challenges prese ...
This study provides a performance analysis of radiometric autonomous navigation for the lunar satellite network topologies formed by three spacecraft at various orbits. This work is built on the Linked Autonomous Interplanetary Satellite Orbit Navigation (LiAISON) method and uses ...

Autonomous navigation for deep space small satellites

Scientific and technological advances

In recent years, there is a growing interest in small satellites for deep space exploration. The current approach for planetary navigation is based on ground-based radiometric tracking. A new era of low-cost small satellites for space exploration will require autonomous deep spac ...
The Lunar Meteoroid Impacts Observer (LUMIO) is a CubeSat mission to observe, quantify, and characterize the meteoroid impacts on the lunar farside by detecting their flashes. This complements the knowledge gathered by Earth-based observations of the lunar nearside, thus synthesi ...
In this study, the application of the Linked Autonomous Interplanetary Satellite Orbit Navigation (LiAISON) method for cislunar satellite formations is investigated considering range only and range-rate only measurements. The LiAISON method provides an autonomous orbit determinat ...
This study investigates the application of the Linked Autonomous Interplanetary Satellite Orbit Navigation (LiAI-SON) technique for multiple small spacecraft in cislunar orbits considering high inter-satellite range measurement errors. The LiAISON method provides an autonomous or ...
This study presents an autonomous orbit determination system based on crosslink radiometric measurements applied to a future lunar CubeSat mission to clearly highlight its advantages with respect to existing ground-based navigation strategies. This work is based on the Linked Aut ...
The Lunar Meteoroid Impact Observer (LUMIO) is a mission designed to observe, quantify, and characterize the meteoroid impacts by detecting their flashes on the lunar far side. Earth-based lunar observations are restricted by weather, geometric and illumination conditions, while ...