"LICIACube - the Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids" is a CubeSat managed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), that will be part of the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission [2]. DART will be the first mission demonstrating the applicability of the kinetic impactor to change to motion of an asteroid in space and prevent the impact of Earth with a hazardous object. After being launched in summer 2021, the DART spacecraft will impact in autumn 2022 Dimorphos, the secondary member of the (65803) Didymos binary asteroid. With a mass of 650 kg and an impact velocity of about 6.6 km/s, DART is expected to change the binary orbital period of the 160-m Dimorphos by about 10 minutes, an effect that can be easily measured by ground-based telescopes. The design, integration and test of the CubeSat have been assigned by ASI to the aerospace company Argotec, while the LICIACube Ground Segment has a complex architecture based on the Argotec Mission Control Centre, antennas of the NASA Deep Space Network and data archiving and processing, managed at the ASI Space Science Data Center. The LICIACube team includes a wide scientific community, involved in the definition of all the aspects of the mission: trajectory design; navigation analysis (and real-time orbit determination during operations); impact, plume and imaging simulation and modelling, in preparation of a suitable framework for the analysis and interpretation of in-situ data. The scientific team is led by National Institute of Astrophysics (OAR, IAPS, OAA, OAPd, OATs) with the support of IFAC-CNR and University Parthenope of Naples. The team is enriched by University of Bologna, for orbit determination and satellite navigation, and Polytechnic of Milan, for mission analysis and optimization. The major technological mission challenge, i.e. the autonomous targeting and imaging of such a small body during a fast fly-by, to be accomplished with the limited resources of a CubeSat, is affordable thanks to a strong synergy of all the mentioned teams in support of the engineering tasks.
LICIACube: the Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids
A Rossi;
2020
Abstract
"LICIACube - the Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids" is a CubeSat managed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), that will be part of the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission [2]. DART will be the first mission demonstrating the applicability of the kinetic impactor to change to motion of an asteroid in space and prevent the impact of Earth with a hazardous object. After being launched in summer 2021, the DART spacecraft will impact in autumn 2022 Dimorphos, the secondary member of the (65803) Didymos binary asteroid. With a mass of 650 kg and an impact velocity of about 6.6 km/s, DART is expected to change the binary orbital period of the 160-m Dimorphos by about 10 minutes, an effect that can be easily measured by ground-based telescopes. The design, integration and test of the CubeSat have been assigned by ASI to the aerospace company Argotec, while the LICIACube Ground Segment has a complex architecture based on the Argotec Mission Control Centre, antennas of the NASA Deep Space Network and data archiving and processing, managed at the ASI Space Science Data Center. The LICIACube team includes a wide scientific community, involved in the definition of all the aspects of the mission: trajectory design; navigation analysis (and real-time orbit determination during operations); impact, plume and imaging simulation and modelling, in preparation of a suitable framework for the analysis and interpretation of in-situ data. The scientific team is led by National Institute of Astrophysics (OAR, IAPS, OAA, OAPd, OATs) with the support of IFAC-CNR and University Parthenope of Naples. The team is enriched by University of Bologna, for orbit determination and satellite navigation, and Polytechnic of Milan, for mission analysis and optimization. The major technological mission challenge, i.e. the autonomous targeting and imaging of such a small body during a fast fly-by, to be accomplished with the limited resources of a CubeSat, is affordable thanks to a strong synergy of all the mentioned teams in support of the engineering tasks.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
