Milani is a 6U CubeSat that will be part of the Hera mission around the Didymos binary system. Its objectives are both scientific and technological: to study and characterize the Didymos environment, and to demonstrate the use of CubeSat technologies for interplanetary missions. The latter includes the usage of autonomous navigation algorithms in a close-proximity environment. The purpose of this work is twofold. First, to provide an updated overview of the Milani mission. Second, for the first time, to illustrate the architecture and some preliminary results of the semi-autonomous optical-based GNC system.

In this paper, a practical approach to trajectory design for asteroid exploration missions with CubeSats is presented. When applied trajectories are sought, operative concerns and uncertainties affecting the spacecraft dynamics must be considered during the preliminary design process. Otherwise, trajectories that are possible on paper might become infeasible when real-world constraints are considered. The risk of such eventualities leads to the need to extend the trajectory design to focus on the uncertainties affecting the dynamics and on the operative constraints derived by ground operations. This is especially true when targeting highly perturbed environments such as small bodies with low-cost solutions such as CubeSats, whose capabilities in deep space are still unknown. The case study presented is the Milani CubeSat, which will be launched in 2024 with Hera in the frame of the AIDA mission.

No abstract

No abstract