Browsing by Author "Snodgrass, Colin"
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Item Open Access Asteroid belt multiple flyby options for M-Class Missions(International Astronautical Federation, 2016-09-30) Sánchez Cuartielles, Joan Pau; Gibbings, Alison; Snodgrass, Colin; Green, Simon F.; Bowles, Neil E.Addressing many of the fundamental questions in modern planetary science, as well as in ESA’s cosmic vision, requires a comprehensive knowledge of our Solar System’s asteroid belt. This paper investigates potential opportunities for medium-class asteroid belt survey missions in the timeframe of 2029-2030. The study has been developed in support to CASTAway Asteroid Spectroscopic Survey mission proposal, which is to be submitted to the latest ESA’s medium size mission call. CASTAway envisages the launch of a small telescope with relatively straightforward (i.e. high TRL) remote sensing instrumentation to observe asteroids at a long-range (i.e. point source), but also at a short-range, resolving them at ~10 m resolution. This paper presents a challenging multi-objective optimization problem and discusses the feasibility of such a mission concept. A baseline trajectory is presented that meets both ESA’s medium size mission constraints and the science requirements. The trajectory loops through the asteroid belt during 7 years, visiting 10 objects of a wide range of characteristics, providing sufficient survey time to obtain compositional information for 10,000s of objects and the serendipitous discovery of also 10,000s of 10-m class asteroids. The methodology developed has enabled the exploration of the entire design space for a conservative Soyuz-launch performance, and has found a total of 200 different tour opportunities of the asteroid belt; all compliant with ESA’s 5th call for medium size missions.Item Open Access The Castalia mission to Main Belt Coment 133P/Elst-Pizarro(Elsevier, 2017-09-19) Snodgrass, Colin; Jones, G. H.; Boehnhardt, H.; Gibbings, Alison; Homeister, M.; Andre, N.; Beck, P.; Bentley, M. S.; Bertini, I.; Bowles, Neil E.; Capria, M. T.; Carr, C.; Ceriotti, M.; Coates, A. J.; Della Corte, V.; Donaldson Hanna, Kerri L.; Fitzsimmons, A.; Gutiérrez, P. J.; Hainaut, O. R.; Herique, A.; Hilchenbach, M.; Hsieh, H. H.; Jehin, E.; Karatekin, O.; Kofman, W.; Lara, L. M.; Laudan, K.; Licandro, J.; Lowry, S. C.; Marzari, F.; Masters, A.; Meech, K. J.; Moreno, F.; Morse, A.; Orosei, R.; Pack, A.; Plettemeier, D.; Prialnik, D.; Rotundi, A.; Rubin, M.; Sánchez, Joan-Pau; Sheridan, S.; Trieloff, M.; Winterboer, A.We describe Castalia, a proposed mission to rendezvous with a Main Belt Comet (MBC), 133P/Elst-Pizarro. MBCs are a recently discovered population of apparently icy bodies within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, which may represent the remnants of the population which supplied the early Earth with water. Castalia will perform the first exploration of this population by characterising 133P in detail, solving the puzzle of the MBC’s activity, and making the first in situ measurements of water in the asteroid belt. In many ways a successor to ESA’s highly successful Rosetta mission, Castalia will allow direct comparison between very different classes of comet, including measuring critical isotope ratios, plasma and dust properties. It will also feature the first radar system to visit a minor body, mapping the ice in the interior. Castalia was proposed, in slightly different versions, to the ESA M4 and M5 calls within the Cosmic Vision programme. We describe the science motivation for the mission, the measurements required to achieve the scientific goals, and the proposed instrument payload and spacecraft to achieve these.Item Open Access CASTAway: An asteroid main belt tour and survey(Elsevier, 2017-11-01) Bowles, Neil E.; Snodgrass, Colin; Gibbings, Alison; Sanchez, Joan-Pau; Arnold, Jessica A.; Eccleston, Paul; Andert, Tom; Probst, A.; Naletto, Giampiero; Vandaele, A. C.; de Leon, J.; Nathues, A.; Thomas, Ian R.; Thomas, Nicholas; Jorda, Laurent; Da Deppo, Vania; Haack, H.; Green, Simon F.; Carry, Benoit; Donaldson Hanna, Kerri L.; Leif Jorgensen, J.; Kereszturi, Akos; DeMeo, F. E.; Patel, Manish R.; Davies, John K.; Clarke, Fraser; Kinch, K.; Guilbert-Lepoutre, A.; Agarwal, J.; Rivkin, Andy S.; Pravec, Petr; Fornasier, Sonia; Granvik, Mikael; Jones, Rhian H.; Murdoch, Naomi; Joy, Katherine H.; Pascale, Enzo; Tecza, Matthias; Barnes, Jenny M.; Licandro, J.; Greenhagen, Benjamin T.; Calcutt, Simon B.; Marriner, C. M.; Warren, Tristram; Tosh, IanCASTAway is a mission concept to explore our Solar System’s main asteroid belt. Asteroids and comets provide a window into the formation and evolution of our Solar System and the composition of these objects can be inferred from space-based remote sensing using spectroscopic techniques. Variations in composition across the asteroid populations provide a tracer for the dynamical evolution of the Solar System. The mission combines a long-range (point source) telescopic survey of over 10,000 objects, targeted close encounters with 10–20 asteroids and serendipitous searches to constrain the distribution of smaller (e.g. 10 m) size objects into a single concept. With a carefully targeted trajectory that loops through the asteroid belt, CASTAway would provide a comprehensive survey of the main belt at multiple scales. The scientific payload comprises a 50 cm diameter telescope that includes an integrated low-resolution (R = 30–100) spectrometer and visible context imager, a thermal (e.g. 6–16 µm) imager for use during the flybys, and modified star tracker cameras to detect small (∼10 m) asteroids. The CASTAway spacecraft and payload have high levels of technology readiness and are designed to fit within the programmatic and cost caps for a European Space Agency medium class mission, while delivering a significant increase in knowledge of our Solar System.