Abstract "LICIACube - the Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids" is a space mission of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), based on a 6U cubesat that will be part of the NASA DART mission. It has the aim to enhance the information gained from the main probe impact on the secondary member of the (65803) Didymos binary asteroid system and to allow dedicated scientific investigations. DART probe will be launched in mid 2021 and LICIACube will be hosted as piggyback during the 15 months of interplanetary cruise, then released five days before the impact and autonomously guided along its fly-by trajectory. Several unique images of the effects of the DART impact on the asteroid, such as e.g. the formation and the development of the plume potentially determined by the impact itself, will be collected and transmitted to Earth. LICIACube, whose design, integration and test have been assigned to the aerospace company Argotec, is an ASI project. 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. LICIACube will be the first Italian autonomous mission in deep space, also for the Ground Segment, with data archiving and processing managed by the ASI Space Science Data Center: the whole project and its present status-of-the-art will be presented and discussed together with the in situ observing strategy and the expected performances.
LICIACube: the Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids
Rossi Alessandro;
2021
Abstract
Abstract "LICIACube - the Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids" is a space mission of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), based on a 6U cubesat that will be part of the NASA DART mission. It has the aim to enhance the information gained from the main probe impact on the secondary member of the (65803) Didymos binary asteroid system and to allow dedicated scientific investigations. DART probe will be launched in mid 2021 and LICIACube will be hosted as piggyback during the 15 months of interplanetary cruise, then released five days before the impact and autonomously guided along its fly-by trajectory. Several unique images of the effects of the DART impact on the asteroid, such as e.g. the formation and the development of the plume potentially determined by the impact itself, will be collected and transmitted to Earth. LICIACube, whose design, integration and test have been assigned to the aerospace company Argotec, is an ASI project. 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. LICIACube will be the first Italian autonomous mission in deep space, also for the Ground Segment, with data archiving and processing managed by the ASI Space Science Data Center: the whole project and its present status-of-the-art will be presented and discussed together with the in situ observing strategy and the expected performances.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
