Organic, inorganic or hybrid devices in the liquid state, kept in a fixed volume by surface tension or by a confining membrane that protects them from a harsh environment, could be used as biologically inspired autonomous robotic systems with unique capabilities. They could change shape according to a specific exogenous command or by means of a fully integrated adaptive system, and provide an innovative solution for many future applications, such as space exploration in extreme or otherwise challenging environments, post‐disaster search and rescue in ground applications, compliant wearable devices, and even in the medical field for in vivo applications. This perspective provides an initial assessment of existing capabilities that could be leveraged to pursue the topic of “Smart Fluid Systems” or “Liquid Engineered Systems”.

Future planetary explorations envisioned by the National Research Council's (NRC's) report titled Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013-2022, developed for NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Planetary Science Division (PSD), seek to reach targets of broad scientific interest across the solar system. This goal requires new capabilities such as innovative interplanetary trajectories, precision landing, operation in close proximity to targets, precision pointing, multiple collaborating spacecraft, multiple target tours, and advanced robotic surface exploration. Advancements in Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) and Mission Design in the areas of software, algorithm development and sensors will be necessary to accomplish these future missions. This paper summarizes the key GN&C and mission design capabilities and technologies needed for future missions pursuing SMD PSD's scientific goals.

We explore opportunities afforded by an extremely large telescope design comprised of ill-figured randomly varying subapertures. The veracity of this approach is demonstrated with a laboratory scaled system whereby we reconstruct a white light binary point source separated by 2.5 times the diffraction limit. With an inherently unknown varying random point spread function, the measured speckle images require a restoration framework that combine support vector machine based lucky imaging and non-negative matrix factorization based multiframe blind deconvolution. To further validate the approach, we model the experimental system to explore sub-diffraction-limited performance, and an object comprised of multiple point sources.

Colloidal devices—in the liquid state—possibly protected from harsh planetary environments by a soft protective deformable skin, represent a totally new paradigm in the field of robotics. They include the autonomy features of conventional robotics and the shape‐changing advantages of soft robotics and offer new opportunities to science and technology. For these systems, energy management is considered to be the most essential function to guarantee autonomy and operation. Herein, smart fluids as autonomous systems with energy‐harvesting/storage capabilities are described and an initial assessment of existing possibilities that can be leveraged to pursue the emerging topic of colloidal autonomous systems is provided.

Abstract. The study deals with the issue of changing the plane of rotation (retargeting) of a linear kilometer-sized formation of two collectors and one combiner spacecraft connected by two tether arms. A control strategy is proposed that makes use of a pair of electrical thrusters located onboard two of the three spacecraft to redirect the angular momentum of the formation to a new target with an accuracy of a few arcseconds while keeping the angular momentum magnitude constant throughout the maneuver. The thruster profile is optimized to achieve a very smooth but relatively fast maneuver while maintaining the overall fuel consumption at a minimum level. The attitude dynamics of the formation are solved analytically based on a perturbation method, which allows calibrating the thrust profile for high-precision retargeting. A numerical model is employed to test the proposed strategy and to evaluate the influence of massive flexible tethers and external perturbations on the accuracy of the maneuver. Finally, the required propellant mass is evaluated with reference to envisioned space interferometry missions