SISPO: Space Imaging Simulator for Proximity Operations

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Public Library of Science. All rights reserved.This paper describes the architecture and demonstrates the capabilities of a newly developed, physically-based imaging simulator environment called SISPO, developed for small solar system body fly-by and terrestrial planet surface mission simulations. The image simulator utilises the open-source 3-D visualisation system Blender and its Cycles rendering engine, which supports physically based rendering capabilities and procedural micropolygon displacement texture generation. The simulator concentrates on realistic surface rendering and has supplementary models to produce realistic dust- and gas-environment optical models for comets and active asteroids. The framework also includes tools to simulate the most common image aberrations, such as tangential and sagittal astigmatism, internal and external comatic aberration, and simple geometric distortions. The model framework’s primary objective is to support small-body space mission design by allowing better simulations for characterisation of imaging instrument performance, assisting mission planning, and developing computer-vision algorithms. SISPO allows the simulation of trajectories, light parameters and camera’s intrinsic parameters.Peer reviewe

Electric Sail Test Cube–Lunar Nanospacecraft, ESTCube-LuNa: Solar Wind Propulsion Demonstration Mission Concept

The electric solar wind sail, or E-sail, is a propellantless interplanetary propulsion system concept. By deflecting solar wind particles off their original course, it can generate a propulsive effect with nothing more than an electric charge. The high-voltage charge is applied to one or multiple centrifugally deployed hair-thin tethers, around which an electrostatic sheath is created. Electron emitters are required to compensate for the electron current gathered by the tether. The electric sail can also be utilised in low Earth orbit, or LEO, when passing through the ionosphere, where it serves as a plasma brake for deorbiting—several missions have been dedicated to LEO demonstration. In this article, we propose the ESTCube-LuNa mission concept and the preliminary cubesat design to be launched into the Moon’s orbit, where the solar wind is uninterrupted, except for the lunar wake and when the Moon is in the Earth’s magnetosphere. This article introduces E-sail demonstration experiments and the preliminary payload design, along with E-sail thrust validation and environment characterisation methods, a cis-lunar cubesat platform solution and an early concept of operations. The proposed lunar nanospacecraft concept is designed without a deep space network, typically used for lunar and deep space operations. Instead, radio telescopes are being repurposed for communications and radio frequency ranging, and celestial optical navigation is developed for on-board orbit determination