Water Reservoirs in Small Planetary Bodies: Meteorites,Asteroids, and Comets

Asteroids and comets are the remnants of the swarm of planetesimals from which the planets ultimately formed, and they retain records of processes that operated prior to and during planet formation. They are also likely the sources of most of the water and other volatiles accreted by Earth. In this review, we discuss the nature and probable origins of asteroids and comets based on data from remote observations, in situ measurements by spacecraft, and laboratory analyses of meteorites derived from asteroids. The asteroidal parent bodies of meteorites formed \(\leq 4\) Ma after Solar System formation while there was still a gas disk present. It seems increasingly likely that the parent bodies of meteorites spectroscopically linked with the E-, S-, M- and V-type asteroids formed sunward of Jupiter’s orbit, while those associated with C- and, possibly, D-type asteroids formed further out, beyond Jupiter but probably not beyond Saturn’s orbit. Comets formed further from the Sun than any of the meteorite parent bodies, and retain much higher abundances of interstellar material. CI and CM group meteorites are probably related to the most common C-type asteroids, and based on isotopic evidence they, rather than comets, are the most likely sources of the H and N accreted by the terrestrial planets. However, comets may have been major sources of the noble gases accreted by Earth and Venus. Possible constraints that these observations can place on models of giant planet formation and migration are explored.     

Occurrence of equatorial plasma bubbles over Kolhapur

This paper reports the nightglow observations of OI 630.0 nm emissions, made by using all sky imager operating at low latitude station Kolhapur (16.8°N, 74.2°E and dip lat. 10.6°N) during high sunspot number years of 24th solar cycle. The images are analyzed to study the nocturnal, seasonal and solar activity dependence occurrence of plasma bubbles. We observed EPBs in images regularly during a limited period 19:30 to 02:30 LT and reach maximum probability of occurrence at 22:30 LT. The observation pattern of EPBs shows nearly no occurrence during the month of May and it maximizes during the period October–April. The equinox and solstice seasonal variations in the occurrence of plasma bubbles show nearly equal and large differences, respectively, between years of 2010–11 and 2011–12.     

Navigation Solution to Maneuver a Spacecraft Relative to a Sphere Centered on a Cooperative Satellite

A differential correction algorithm is presented to deliver an impulsive maneuver to a satellite to place it within a sphere, with a user defined radius, centered around a non-maneuvering satellite within a constrained time. The differential correction algorithm develops and utilizes the State Transition Matrix along with the Equations of Motion and multiple satellite?s state information to determine the optimum trajectory to achieve the desired results. The results from the differential correction algorithm are very accurate for prograde orbits, as presented. The results allow for orbit design trade-offs, including satellites? initial inclinations, semi-major axes, as well as the ballistic coefficients. The results also provide an empirical method to determine the optimum ΔV$\mathrm{\Delta }V$ solution for the provided problem. Understanding that the minimum fuel solution lies with a semi-major axis ratio of 1, a very accurate empirical approximation is presented for semi-major axis ratio values less than and greater than 1. This work ultimately provides the generalized framework for applying the algorithm to a unique user defined maneuvering spacecraft scenario.     

Challenges and perspectives of transport cargo vehicles utilization for performing research in free flight

Russian Progress transport cargo vehicles have successfully been used in different space station programs since 1978. At present time, they play an important role in the International Space Station (ISS) project. Main tasks performed by the transport cargo vehicle (TCV) in the station program are the following: refueling of the station, delivery of consumables and equipment, waste removal, station attitude control and orbit correction maneuver execution.     

Effects of uncertainties and flexible dynamic contributions on the control of a spacecraft full-coupled model

One of the most important problems for performing a good design of the spacecraft attitude control law is connected to its robustness when some uncertainty parameters are present on the inertial and/or on the elastic characteristics of a satellite. These uncertainties are generally intrinsic on the modeling of complex structures and in the case of large flexible structures they can be also attributed to secondary effects associated to the elasticity. One of the most interesting issues in modeling large flexible space structures is associated to the evaluation of the inertia tensor which in general depends not only on the geometric ‘fixed’ characteristic of the satellite but also on its elastic displacements which of course in turn modify the ‘shape’ of the satellite. Usually these terms can be considered of a second order of magnitude if compared with the ones associated to the rigid part of a structure. However the increasing demand on the dimension of satellites due to the presence for instance of very large solar arrays (necessary to generate power) and/or large antennas has the necessity to investigate their effects on their global dynamic behavior in more details as a consequence. In the present paper a methodology based on classical Lagrangian approach coupled with a standard Finite Element tool has been used to derive the full dynamic equations of an orbiting flexible satellite under the actions of gravity, gravity gradient forces and attitude control. A particular attention has been paid to the study of the effects of flexibility on the inertial terms of the spacecraft which, as well known, influence its attitude dynamic behavior. Furthermore the effects of the attitude control authority and its robustness to the uncertainties on inertial and elastic parameters has been investigated and discussed.     

Long-term evolution of Galileo operational orbits by canonical perturbation theory

Galileo operational orbits are slightly affected by the 3 to 5 tesseral resonance, an effect that can be much more important in the case of disposal orbits. Proceeding by canonical perturbation theory we show that the part of the long-term Hamiltonian corresponding to the non-centralities of the Earth's gravitational potential can be replaced by an intermediary that shows the pendulum dynamics of the 3 to 5 tesseral resonance problem. Inclusion of lunisolar perturbations requires a semi-analytical integration, which is compared with the corresponding results from the well-established Draper Semi-analytical Satellite Theory.     

Three dimensional temperature field in a conducting sphere due to an arbitrarily located split ring heating source

Thermal control of spacecrafts plays an important role in space missions. In the design stage the preliminary thermal analysis of the spacecraft requires an estimate of the conductive thermal resistance between the various spacecraft components. With this in mind, the fully three dimensional problem of determining the thermal field in a conducting sphere with an asymmetric split ring current carrying heating source is resolved in an analytical or almost analytical form, implying either a closed form solution or utmost expressions involving a simple numerical integration. This has immediate application for evaluation of thermal resistance in spacecrafts. Green's function integral techniques are used. Comparisons are made with series solutions and also with purely numerical solutions to contrast the simplicity and highlight the elegance of the present method. Parametric studies reveal expected behavior.     

New one-axis one-sensor magnetic attitude control theoretical and in-flight performance

New one-axis magnetic attitude control is proposed. Only one attitude sensor providing any inertial direction measurements is necessary, magnetometer is not used. The control may be used as a backup capability in case main actuators or some attitude sensors fail. Sun pointing is achievable using only three-axis Sun sensor, so the control may be used to lower the power consumption during battery charging. Asymptotic stability of different equilibria depending on the satellite inertia tensor is summarized. In-flight results from “Chibis-M” microsatellite are provided proving general control performance.     

The construction of gravitational field models on the basis of satellite measurements of gravitational potential derivatives

In [1] expressions were constructed for the derivatives of all the orders of a planet’s gravitational potential with respect to the rectangular coordinates related to the gravity center of a planet. These expressions are series of spherical functions. The coefficients of the series of first-order derivatives depend on two Stokes constants, whereas the coefficients of next-order derivatives are linear combinations of the coefficients of preceding-order derivatives. In the present paper the derived expressions for the first and second potential derivatives are transformed into the form that is most convenient for solving the inverse problem, i.e., evaluating Stokes constants from satellite measurements of these derivatives. Each term of the new series for a derivative depends on a sum of two Stokes constants multiplied by linear combinations of several spherical functions. The new form of the expansions for the potential derivatives makes it possible to calculate Stokes constants by simultaneously applying satellite data either for all three first-order potential derivatives, or for all six second-order derivatives. The constructed series may be applied for modeling the Earth’s gravitational field from the satellite data obtained in the international CHAMP, GRACE, and GOCE missions.