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

Burnout among surgeons before and during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: an international survey

Background: SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has had many significant impacts within the surgical realm, and surgeons have been obligated to reconsider almost every aspect of daily clinical practice. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study reported in compliance with the CHERRIES guidelines and conducted through an online platform from June 14th to July 15th, 2020. The primary outcome was the burden of burnout during the pandemic indicated by the validated Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure. Results: Nine hundred fifty-four surgeons completed the survey. The median length of practice was 10 years; 78.2% included were male with a median age of 37 years old, 39.5% were consultants, 68.9% were general surgeons, and 55.7% were affiliated with an academic institution. Overall, there was a significant increase in the mean burnout score during the pandemic; longer years of practice and older age were significantly associated with less burnout. There were significant reductions in the median number of outpatient visits, operated cases, on-call hours, emergency visits, and research work, so, 48.2% of respondents felt that the training resources were insufficient. The majority (81.3%) of respondents reported that their hospitals were included in the management of COVID-19, 66.5% felt their roles had been minimized; 41% were asked to assist in non-surgical medical practices, and 37.6% of respondents were included in COVID-19 management. Conclusions: There was a significant burnout among trainees. Almost all aspects of clinical and research activities were affected with a significant reduction in the volume of research, outpatient clinic visits, surgical procedures, on-call hours, and emergency cases hindering the training. Trial registration: The study was registered on clicaltrials.gov "NCT04433286" on 16/06/2020

Laparoscopic isolated caudate lobectomy of two symptomatic familiar giant liver hemangiomas, case reports and literature review

Background and objective: Liver hemangioma (LH) is the most common benign tumour of the liver, but its origin is still not clear and not much is known about a possible familiarity. Caudate lobectomy is the most effective surgical treatment for benign tumors arisen in segment I. The occurrence of giant LH within the same liver segments in different members of the same family has never been described in literature. Herein we report the first two consecutive laparoscopic caudate lobectomy for familiar giant LH in a father and his daughter. Methods: The father showed a lesion in the caudate lobe (CL) suggestive of LH steadily grown, asymptomatic for 24 years until it has caused abdominal discomfort and pain (Dmax 89 mm). The daughter showed multiple hepatic hemangiomas with the biggest one located in the CL compressing the inferior vena cava (Dmax 88 mm). Results: Despite the size of the masses, we opted for a pure laparoscopic approach and a caudate lobectomy was performed in both cases. Operation time was 140 and 180 min. Patients had an uneventful recovery and a good outcome after the scheduled follow up exams 6 months after the procedure. Conclusions: A chance of familiarity transmission for hemangiomas exists and therefore should be further investigated. Laparoscopic isolated caudate lobectomy for symptomatic GLH is feasible and safely performed on selected patients by experienced hepatobiliary surgeons. Prospective randomized studies on larger populations are needed to assess if this minimally invasive approach can be proposed as a standard of care for S-I LH

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