The SSDC Role in the LICIACube Mission: Data Management and the MATISSE Tool

Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube) is an Italian mission managed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and part of the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) planetary defense mission. Its main goals are to document the effects of the DART impact on Dimorphos, the secondary member of the (65803) Didymos binary asteroid system, characterizing the shape of the target body and performing dedicated scientific investigations on it. Within this framework, the mission Science Operations Center will be managed by the Space Science Data Center (ASI-SSDC), which will have the responsibility of processing, archiving, and disseminating the data acquired by the two LICIACube onboard cameras. In order to better accomplish this task, SSDC also plans to use and modify its scientific webtool Multi-purpose Advanced Tool for Instruments for the solar system Exploration (MATISSE), making it the primary tool for the LICIACube data analysis, thanks to its advanced capabilities for searching and visualizing data, particularly useful for the irregular shapes common to several small bodies

VADER: Probing the Dark Side of Dimorphos with LICIACube LUKE

The ASI cubesat LICIACube has been part of the first planetary defense mission DART, having among its scopes to complement the DRACO images to better constrain the Dimorphos shape. LICIACube had two different cameras, LEIA and LUKE, and to accomplish its goal, it exploited the unique possibility of acquiring images of the Dimorphos hemisphere not seen by DART from a vantage point of view, in both time and space. This work is indeed aimed at constraining the tridimensional shape of Dimorphos, starting from both LUKE images of the nonimpacted hemisphere of Dimorphos and the results obtained by DART looking at the impacted hemisphere. To this aim, we developed a semiautomatic Computer Vision algorithm, named VADER, able to identify objects of interest on the basis of physical characteristics, subsequently used as input to retrieve the shape of the ellipse projected in the LUKE images analyzed. Thanks to this shape, we then extracted information about the Dimorphos ellipsoid by applying a series of quantitative geometric considerations. Although the solution space coming from this analysis includes the triaxial ellipsoid found by using DART images, we cannot discard the possibility that Dimorphos has a more elongated shape, more similar to what is expected from previous theories and observations. The result of our work seems therefore to emphasize the unique value of the LICIACube mission and its images, making even clearer the need of having different points of view to accurately define the shape of an asteroid.This work was supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) within the LICIACube project (ASI-INAF agreement AC No. 2019-31-HH.0) and by the DART mission, NASA contract 80MSFC20D0004

The Dimorphos ejecta plume properties revealed by LICIACube

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) had an impact with Dimorphos (a satellite of the asteroid Didymos) on 26 September 20221. Ground-based observations showed that the Didymos system brightened by a factor of 8.3 after the impact because of ejecta, returning to the pre-impact brightness 23.7 days afterwards2. Hubble Space Telescope observations made from 15 minutes after impact to 18.5 days after, with a spatial resolution of 2.1 kilometres per pixel, showed a complex evolution of the ejecta3, consistent with other asteroid impact events. The momentum enhancement factor, determined using the measured binary period change4, ranges between 2.2 and 4.9, depending on the assumptions about the mass and density of Dimorphos5. Here we report observations from the LUKE and LEIA instruments on the LICIACube cube satellite, which was deployed 15 days in advance of the impact of DART. Data were taken from 71 seconds before the impact until 320 seconds afterwards. The ejecta plume was a cone with an aperture angle of 140 ± 4 degrees. The inner region of the plume was blue, becoming redder with increasing distance from Dimorphos. The ejecta plume exhibited a complex and inhomogeneous structure, characterized by filaments, dust grains and single or clustered boulders. The ejecta velocities ranged from a few tens of metres per second to about 500 metres per second.This work was supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in the LICIACube project (ASI-INAF agreement AC no. 2019-31-HH.0) and by the DART mission, NASA contract 80MSFC20D0004. M.Z. acknowledges Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for granting the University of Bologna a licence to an executable version of MONTE Project Edition software. M.Z. is grateful to D. Lubey, M. Smith, D. Mages, C. Hollenberg and S. Bhaskaran of NASA/JPL for the discussions and suggestions regarding the operational navigation of LICIACube. G.P. acknowledges financial support from the Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES, France). A.C.B. acknowledges funding by the NEO-MAPP project (grant agreement 870377, EC H2020-SPACE-2019) and by the Ministerio de Ciencia Innovación (PGC 2018) RTI2018-099464-B-I00. F.F. acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Ambizione (grant no. 193346). J.-Y.L. acknowledges the support from the NASA DART Participating Scientist Program (grant no. 80NSSC21K1131). S.D.R. and M.J. acknowledge support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (project no. 200021_207359)

How future surgery will benefit from SARS-COV-2-related measures: a SPIGC survey conveying the perspective of Italian surgeons

COVID-19 negatively affected surgical activity, but the potential benefits resulting from adopted measures remain unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the change in surgical activity and potential benefit from COVID-19 measures in perspective of Italian surgeons on behalf of SPIGC. A nationwide online survey on surgical practice before, during, and after COVID-19 pandemic was conducted in March-April 2022 (NCT:05323851). Effects of COVID-19 hospital-related measures on surgical patients' management and personal professional development across surgical specialties were explored. Data on demographics, pre-operative/peri-operative/post-operative management, and professional development were collected. Outcomes were matched with the corresponding volume. Four hundred and seventy-three respondents were included in final analysis across 14 surgical specialties. Since SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, application of telematic consultations (4.1% vs. 21.6%; p < 0.0001) and diagnostic evaluations (16.4% vs. 42.2%; p < 0.0001) increased. Elective surgical activities significantly reduced and surgeons opted more frequently for conservative management with a possible indication for elective (26.3% vs. 35.7%; p < 0.0001) or urgent (20.4% vs. 38.5%; p < 0.0001) surgery. All new COVID-related measures are perceived to be maintained in the future. Surgeons' personal education online increased from 12.6% (pre-COVID) to 86.6% (post-COVID; p < 0.0001). Online educational activities are considered a beneficial effect from COVID pandemic (56.4%). COVID-19 had a great impact on surgical specialties, with significant reduction of operation volume. However, some forced changes turned out to be benefits. Isolation measures pushed the use of telemedicine and telemetric devices for outpatient practice and favored communication for educational purposes and surgeon-patient/family communication. From the Italian surgeons' perspective, COVID-related measures will continue to influence future surgical clinical practice

Achievement of the planetary defense investigations of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission was the first to demonstrate asteroid deflection, and the mission's Level 1 requirements guided its planetary defense investigations. Here, we summarize DART's achievement of those requirements. On 2022 September 26, the DART spacecraft impacted Dimorphos, the secondary member of the Didymos near-Earth asteroid binary system, demonstrating an autonomously navigated kinetic impact into an asteroid with limited prior knowledge for planetary defense. Months of subsequent Earth-based observations showed that the binary orbital period was changed by –33.24 minutes, with two independent analysis methods each reporting a 1σ uncertainty of 1.4 s. Dynamical models determined that the momentum enhancement factor, β, resulting from DART's kinetic impact test is between 2.4 and 4.9, depending on the mass of Dimorphos, which remains the largest source of uncertainty. Over five dozen telescopes across the globe and in space, along with the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids, have contributed to DART's investigations. These combined investigations have addressed topics related to the ejecta, dynamics, impact event, and properties of both asteroids in the binary system. A year following DART's successful impact into Dimorphos, the mission has achieved its planetary defense requirements, although work to further understand DART's kinetic impact test and the Didymos system will continue. In particular, ESA's Hera mission is planned to perform extensive measurements in 2027 during its rendezvous with the Didymos–Dimorphos system, building on DART to advance our knowledge and continue the ongoing international collaboration for planetary defense

Design and preliminary validation of a high-fidelity vascular simulator for robot-assisted manipulation

Abstract The number of robot-assisted minimally invasive surgeries is increasing annually, together with the need for dedicated and effective training. Surgeons need to learn how to address the novel control modalities of surgical instruments and the loss of haptic feedback, which is a common feature of most surgical robots. High-fidelity physical simulation has proved to be a valid training tool, and it might help in fulfilling these learning needs. In this regard, a high-fidelity sensorized simulator of vascular structures was designed, fabricated and preliminarily validated. The main objective of the simulator is to train novices in robotic surgery to correctly perform vascular resection procedures without applying excessive strain to tissues. The vessel simulator was integrated with soft strain sensors to quantify and objectively assess manipulation skills and to provide real-time feedback to the trainee during a training session. Additionally, a portable and user-friendly training task board was produced to replicate anatomical constraints. The simulator was characterized in terms of its mechanical properties, demonstrating its realism with respect to human tissues. Its face, content and construct validity, together with its usability, were assessed by implementing a training scenario with 13 clinicians, and the results were generally positive

Expected Investigation of the (65803) Didymos–Dimorphos System Using the RGB Spectrophotometry Data Set from the LICIACube Unit Key Explorer (LUKE) Wide-angle Camera.

The Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube) is part of the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the first mission aiming to demonstrate the applicability of the kinetic impactor method for planetary defense. The mission was launched on 2021 November 24 to perform the impact experiment on Dimorphos, the small secondary of the binary asteroid (65803) Didymos. The 6U LICIACube, stored as a piggyback of the DART spacecraft, is the first Italian mission operating in deep space managed by the Italian Space Agency that will witness the effects of the DART impact on Dimorphos. On board LICIACube, there is a suite of cameras that will perform imaging of Didymos and Dimorphos to investigate the DART impact effects and study the binary system. Among them, the LICIACube Unit Key Explorer (LUKE), a wide-angle camera coupled to an RGB Bayer pattern filter, will be pivotal to constrain the surface composition and heterogeneity of the binary system due to differences in surface properties linked with possible space weathering effects and/or the presence of exogenous material. Multiband photometric analysis of LUKE data and laboratory experiments in support of data interpretation will provide new insights on the binary asteroid nature and evolution. Moreover, photometric phase curve analysis will reveal the scattering properties of the granular surface medium providing important constraints for the microphysical properties of the Didymos-Dimorphos system. In this work, we will present the state of the art of the LUKE scientific activities with an overview of the instrument setup, science operations, and expected results

First spectral characterization at different rotational phases for the first target of a kinetic impactor mission: (65803) Didymos.

Binary NEOs represent a great opportunity for space missions towards small bodies, enabling the investigation of nature and origin of two interesting bodies together and maximizing the scientific return of the mission. Moreover, they can be used as a testing ground for planetary defense purposes. In this context, the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART, Rivkin et al. 2021) has been approved to be the first demonstration of kinetic impactor as an hazard mitigation technique. The target chosen for this first full scale test is the (65803) Didymos binary NEO system. The DART spacecraft, launched on November 23rd 2021, will impact Dimorphos, the secondary member of the Didymos binary asteroid system, in late September 2022. Observational campaigns from Earth will help measure and characterize the actual deflection from its orbit around the primary member. The DART mission will host the ASI Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube, Dotto et al. 2021) that will be released 10 days before the impact. It will reach several important scientific goals, such as: i) witness with its optical payloads the impact of DART, ii) study the structure and evolution of the ejecta plume, and iii) acquire images of the event's aftermath on the impacted hemisphere, as well as characterizing the non-impacted one. In order to maximize the scientific results and optimize the planning of the DART/LICIACube mission, it is crucial to obtain a detailed characterization of the surface of this NEO prior to the DART impact. Remote characterization of the system will help disentangle the contribution of the primary from the secondary body and assess the heterogeneity of the surface composition. The limited compositional data available for this binary NEO suggests a possible silicate composition (De Leon et al. 2006), similar to L- and LL-ordinary chondrites (Dunn et al. 2013), the most common meteorites retrieved on Earth. During the observational window in 2021 we obtained for the first time a complete rotational characterization of the system via visible spectroscopy. While the observations confirm an affinity with silicate material and ordinary chondrites, data analysis shows a subtle but persistent spectral slope variation, computed in this case between 0.5 and 0.7 µm. This slope variation is also confirmed by comparing our most recent data with spectra obtained during the previous 2002/2003 and 2019 passages. While this variability can have multiple causes (contribution of the secondary, different viewing geometries, different degrees of surface alterations) our comparison with laboratory data possibly hints at a different concentration of hypersthene and olivine, the principal components of L-/LL ordinary chondrites. New spectral characterization in 2022 (when the system will be brighter than the last two decades) and ideally in the unexplored NIR range will be helpful to confirm these promising results, while RGB-images obtained from LUKE on board of LICIACube have a great chance to resolve this interesting conundrum

LICIACube: the Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids traveling to Dimorphos with DART

LICIACube (Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids) [1] is a 6U CubeSat platform managed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) that was launched, on November 2021, with the NASA mission DART [2] toward the binary asteroid Didymos. After 10 months of flight, at the end of September 2022, DART will impact Dimorphos, the smallest of the two asteroids of the binary system, to perform the first test of the kinetic impactor technique conceived to deflect an asteroid eventually en route to Earth. Ten days before the impact, LICIACube will be released and guided to perform an autonomous fly-by of Dimorphos, with the aims: i) to document the DART impact's effects, ii) to characterize the shape of the target, and iii) to perform dedicated scientific investigations on it. LICIACube has been developed by the Italian aerospace company Argotec and is equipped with two optical cameras (with narrow and wide FoV, respectively): the primary instrument, named LEIA (Liciacube Explorer Imaging for Asteroid), is a catadioptric camera equipped with a Panchromatic filter centered at 650nm±250nm; the secondary instrument, named LUKE (Liciacube Unit Key Explorer), is the Gecko imager from SCS space, equipped with a RGB Bayer pattern filter. Images acquired by LEIA and LUKE will allow us to constrain the shape and volume of Dimorphos as well as its physical properties. High-resolution images, obtained by LEIA at the closest approach (at about 55 km), will allow us to study the surface morphology of Dimorphos and the presence of boulders/large blocks on its surface. The LUKE data will give us also the opportunity to investigate the composition of Dimorphos throughout spectrophotometric analyses. It will then be possible to map the surface composition of the object and to derive the surface heterogeneity at the observed scale. The LEIA and LUKE images of the ejecta plume produced by the impact, compared with numerical models of dust dynamics, will allow us to have measurements of the motion of the slow ejecta and to estimate the structure of the plume itself. During the LICIACube fly-by we will perform also a radio science experiment, exploiting the information carried by radio link between the S/C and the Earth focused on the precise orbit determination, and providing an assessment of the accuracies achievable in the estimation of the scientific parameters of interest, like the masses and the extended gravity field of Didymos. After the Dimorphos fly-by, LICIACube will download the obtained images directly to Earth: 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