TY - GEN
T1 - GNC challenges and opportunities of CUBESAT science missions deployed from the lunar gateway
AU - Kalita, Himangshu
AU - Donayre, Miguel
AU - Padilla, Victor
AU - Riley, Anthony
AU - Samitas, Jesse
AU - Burnett, Brandon
AU - Asphaug, Erik
AU - Robinson, Mark
AU - Thangavelautham, Jekan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Univelt Inc. All rights reserved.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - The Lunar Gateway is expected to be positioned on-orbit around the Moon or in a Halo orbit at the L2 Lagrange point. The proposed Lunar Gateway is a gamechanger for enabling new, high-priority lunar science utilizing CubeSats and presents a refreshing new opportunity for utilization of these small spacecraft as explorers. In context, CubeSats are being stretched to their limits as interplanetary explorers. The main technological hurdles include high-bandwidth communications and reliable high delta-v propulsion. Advances in deep-space attitude determination and control has been made possible from the recent NASA JPL MarCO missions. Due to these limitations, CubeSats are primarily de-signed to be dropped-off from a larger mission. The limited mass and volume have required compromises of the onboard science instruments, longer wait times to send back science data to Earth, shorter mission durations or higher accepted risk. With the Lunar Gateway being planned to be closer to the Moon, it will provide significant savings for a propulsion system and provide a primary relay for communication apart from the DSN and enable tele-operated command/control. These three factors can simplify the mission enabling routine deployment of CubeSats into lunar orbit and enable surface missions. In this paper, we present preliminary designs of 2 CubeSat lunar lander design that will explorer lunar pits, Mare Tranquilitatis and the remnant magnetic fields Reiner Gamma.
AB - The Lunar Gateway is expected to be positioned on-orbit around the Moon or in a Halo orbit at the L2 Lagrange point. The proposed Lunar Gateway is a gamechanger for enabling new, high-priority lunar science utilizing CubeSats and presents a refreshing new opportunity for utilization of these small spacecraft as explorers. In context, CubeSats are being stretched to their limits as interplanetary explorers. The main technological hurdles include high-bandwidth communications and reliable high delta-v propulsion. Advances in deep-space attitude determination and control has been made possible from the recent NASA JPL MarCO missions. Due to these limitations, CubeSats are primarily de-signed to be dropped-off from a larger mission. The limited mass and volume have required compromises of the onboard science instruments, longer wait times to send back science data to Earth, shorter mission durations or higher accepted risk. With the Lunar Gateway being planned to be closer to the Moon, it will provide significant savings for a propulsion system and provide a primary relay for communication apart from the DSN and enable tele-operated command/control. These three factors can simplify the mission enabling routine deployment of CubeSats into lunar orbit and enable surface missions. In this paper, we present preliminary designs of 2 CubeSat lunar lander design that will explorer lunar pits, Mare Tranquilitatis and the remnant magnetic fields Reiner Gamma.
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M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85079482759
SN - 9780877036616
T3 - Advances in the Astronautical Sciences
SP - 233
EP - 244
BT - Guidance, Navigation, and Control, 2019
A2 - Hallowell, Heidi E.
PB - Univelt Inc.
T2 - 42nd AAS Rocky Mountain Section Guidance and Control Conference, 2019
Y2 - 31 January 2019 through 6 February 2019
ER -